B.C. detects the initial case of omicron variant

Key takeaways:

The infected person lately went to Nigeria and is presently quarantined.
The COVID-19 omicron variant has been detected in B.C., in a person who later went home from Nigeria.

BC confirms its first case of the Omicron variant:

B.C. has recognised its first case of the COVID-19 omicron variant, health officials affirmed Tuesday.

The case was detected in a person living in the Fraser Health area, who had lately returned home from visiting Nigeria. Provincial Health Officer Dr Bonnie Henry states that the person is quarantining.

Henry states her crew has been serving with the Public Health Agency of Canada since late last week to recognise an additional 204 people who had lately moved to hit nations. All of those people have been assigned for PCR testing and put into quarantine, Henry spoke.

The omicron variant is striking because it has a huge number of variations that could harm its transmissibility and the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines.

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It stays unclear where or when the variant first detected— but that hasn’t stopped wary nations from rushing to impose travel restrictions, especially on visitors coming from southern Africa where it was first identified. Those moves have been criticized by South Africa and the WHO has cautioned against them, noting their limited effect.

Canada has increased the number of nations with travel constraints to 10.

Dr Srinivas Murthy, an infectious disease specialist and teacher at the University of British Columbia said it’s more remarkable that other public health standards be kept up.

“The border is only one thing we have to protect Canadians,” Murthy stated. Source – cbc.ca

“We have testing internal to our country. We have better contact tracing. We have all of our isolation policies. If we are not implementing the standards of public health, relying on the border to protect us is a bit short-sighted.” Source – cbc.ca