South African scientist Angelique Coetzee, the discoverer of the new Corona virus strain, Omicron, spoke - in an interview with Al Jazeera - about the characteristics of this mutated version, while US President Joe Biden announced a new strategy to address the pandemic.
Coetzee, who heads the South African Medical Association, said that Omicron is a rapidly spreading mutated, but its danger is not yet clear, at a time when scientists are seeking to find out how effective vaccines are in combating it.
Coetzee - who spoke to Al Jazeera on Thursday evening via video from Pretoria - explained that the characteristics of the new mutant reflect a "radical and dangerous difference" from the delta mutant, which has been spreading around the world for about a year and has accounted for half of the new infections with Covid-19.
She indicated that vaccines provide protection from the Omicron mutant and relieve its symptoms, but she added that the effect of the mutant on the unvaccinated has not yet been shown.
The South African scientist stated that the rapid test to detect Covid-19 is able to identify the infection of the new mutant.
South Africa informed the World Health Organization last November 24 that it had discovered a new mutant of the Corona virus, and the organization rushed to study it and classified it as a “worrying” mutant, and named it the Greek letter “omicron”.
Omicron prompted many countries in the world to impose new travel restrictions and close their borders to arrivals from southern Africa.
Biden's plan
For his part, US President Joe Biden - who announced today a new strategy to tackle the pandemic - said that officials do not currently believe that additional measures should be taken to confront Omicron, but "we need contingency plans."
Biden announced that the new strategy includes a set of measures, the first of which is to expand the vaccination campaign with a booster dose of the vaccine.
He explained that this plan, recommended by experts, is aimed at "protecting us and our economy."
"We will fight this mutation with science and speed, not chaos and confusion," the US President said in his speech at the headquarters of the National Institutes of Health.
Yesterday, Wednesday, the authorities announced the first confirmed case of the Omicron strain in the United States, in a person in California.
A second case was discovered Thursday in a person in Minnesota who had recently traveled to New York City.