The United States recommends not traveling to eight African countries due to the new variant COmicron of COVID-19.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the US State Department They were advised not to travel to the eight countries in South Africa on Saturday After the White House announced new travel restrictions in response to a new variant of COVID-19.

The CDC has raised its travel recommendation to South Africa, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Mozambique, Malawi, Lesotho, Eswatini and Botswana as “Risk Level Four: High”.At the same time, the State Department issued parallel “travel bans” on Saturday.

On Monday, the CDC reduced its COVID-19 travel advice to South Africa to “Level 1: Low”.

Anthony Fauci, chief adviser to the U.S. government on medical issues, agreed Saturday A new variant of COVID-19 found in South Africa may have already reached the United States, but has not yet been identified.

“I would not be surprised if it is here. We have not detected it yet. If you have a virus, it spreads very easily and when there are already cases in other countries as a result of the trip, it will reach almost everywhere,” Fousey said in an interview with the network. NBC.

At this time, the CDC assures that they have not detected any cases of Omigron strain in the United States.

Late on Friday Democrat New York Governor Kathy Hochul first declared a state of emergency over the new variant, which will take effect on December 3 and last until at least January 15.

Through this move, Hochul seeks to increase the response capability of hospitals against Govt-19 by preventing them from performing unnecessary actions in certain situations and expanding the state government’s ability to procure emergency medical supplies.

The discovery of this new variant from South Africa worries the scientific community because it presents a combination of more than 30 mutations, some of which are already found in other genres, such as beta, but this is the first time they have been found together.

Fears about this new strain have led many countries around the world, including the European Union, to suspend flights from South Africa, especially from South Africa and Botswana.

The United States, Spain, France, Italy, the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, Singapore, Canada, Austria and Israel have all announced that they will suspend or impose restrictions.

With information from Reuters and EFE

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