Officially reported in South Africa on November 24, this new highly contagious variant would have actually started to spread around the world several days earlier, with Dutch health authorities announcing on Tuesday that Omicron was already circulating in the Netherlands on November 19. , Brazil announced that it had registered its first two cases, the first also in Latin America, among travelers from South Africa.
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But "
general travel bans will not prevent the spread
" of this variant, the WHO said in a technical document.
Faced with the panic which seems to take hold of the planet, the head of the WHO, TedrosAdhanom Ghebreyesus, called Tuesday for “calm” and asked for a “
rational
” and “
proportional
”
response
.
He said he was "
concerned that several member states are taking general and brutal measures which are neither evidence-based nor effective in themselves and which will only worsen the inequalities
" between countries.
