The news of the new variant, first reported in South Africa, led to mass hysteria around the world: markets thumbed and dozens of countries-imposed travel restrictions and additional checks, including the UK, US, EU, Israel, Australia and Japan after the new mutation popped up in the UK, Germany, Italy, Czech Republic and Israel among other countries. Dr Angelique Coetzee, chair of the South African Medical Association, said this reaction was “medically seen, not justified.”
A GP for over three decades, and chair of the South African Medical Association, she was the first African doctor to suggest to local authorities Covid had mutated into a new strain. Coetzee called the response from many European countries, including the UK, “just a hype.” Most patients merely experience a severe headache, nausea, dizziness and a high pulse rate, according to hospitals and medics across Southern Africa.
The WHO and Coronavirus experts are increasingly convinced the new Omicron variant is ‘super mild’ and has, so far, not led to a jump in Covid death rates anywhere in Southern Africa.
The WHO is calling on Sunday morning for countries to drop travel restrictions and end the mass hysteria, and instead be cautiously optimistic as more and more reports out of South Africa suggest the new Omicron variant is not more lethal than the previous Delta variant.
