Quebec has discovered its first case of the Covid-19 Omicron variant, the Canadian province’s health minister said on Monday, bringing Canada’s total number of cases to three.
Quebec Health Minister Christian Dubé told reporters at a briefing on Monday that 115 travellers coming from countries impacted by the new variant, primarily South Africa, were called and asked to take a new PCR test for Covid-19.
Canada said Sunday that it had detected its first cases of the new Omicron strain of Covid-19 in two people who travelled recently to Nigeria.
Both of those patients are in isolation while public health authorities trace their possible contacts, said federal and Ontario provincial officials. The government of Ontario confirmed that the two cases are in the capital Ottawa.
“As the monitoring and testing continues [...] it is expected that other cases of this variant will be found in Canada,” said the country’s Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos in a statement on Sunday.
The World Health Organization has listed Omicron as a “variant of concern” and countries around the world are now restricting travel from southern Africa, where the new strain was first detected, and taking other new precautions.
The WHO says it could take several weeks to know if there are significant changes in transmissibility, severity or implications for Covid vaccines, tests and treatments.
On Friday, Canada banned travel from seven African countries over concerns about the spread of the Omicron strain. Nigeria was not one of them.
About two weeks needed to gain clarity on variant, Fauci says
Across the border in the United States, top infectious disease official Dr. Anthony Fauci told President Joe Biden on Sunday it will take about two weeks to have definitive information on the Omicron variant.
Biden, returning to Washington following the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, was briefed in person by his coronavirus response team on Sunday afternoon as officials expect the new variant to reach the United States despite an impending ban on travellers from southern Africa, where it was first detected.
Fauci said he believes existing vaccines are likely to provide “a degree of protection against severe cases of Covid”, and officials reiterated their recommendation for vaccinated Americans to get booster shots, according to a readout of the briefing.
Earlier on Sunday, Fauci told ABC News’ “This Week” that the new variant would “inevitably” reach the United States.
“Inevitably, it will be here. The question is will we be prepared for it?”
Dr. Anthony Fauci tells @GStephanopoulos that “if and when, and it’s going to be when,” the omicron variant reaches the U.S., health protocols should be "revved up." https://t.co/skFzq74KGV pic.twitter.com/aDkxiGnHAD
— ABC News (@ABC) November 28, 2021
“It clearly is giving indication that it has the capability of transmitting rapidly. That’s the thing that’s causing us now to be concerned,” he added on NBC.
Its appearance in the United States, where 30% of the population has not received a single dose of vaccine, could threaten to undermine the nation’s recovery nearly two years after Covid-19’s emergence and further pressure local healthcare systems already taxed by the recent Delta variant.
Fauci pressed Americans to continue to get Covid-19 vaccines and boosters while experts evaluate Omicron.
“This is a clarion call ... (to) get vaccinated,” he told NBC.
The United States has recorded over 1.1 million new Covid-19 cases in the last 14 days, up 9% from the prior two weeks, Reuters data shows, with Michigan and Minnesota leading the nation in new cases, based on infections per 100,000 residents.
Biden was due to update the public on the new variant and the US response on Monday, the White House said.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP, REUTERS)
