Two passengers who arrived in Sydney from Southern Africa on Saturday evening had tested positive for the Omicron variant of the coronavirus. Both people were asymptomatic, fully vaccinated and in quarantine.
In the most far-reaching effort to keep the variant at bay, Israel announced late on Saturday it would ban the entry of all foreigners and reintroduce counter-terrorism phone-tracking technology to contain the spread of the variant.
In Britain, where two linked cases of Omicron identified on Saturday were connected to travel to Southern Africa, the government announced measures to try to contain the spread, including stricter testing rules for people arriving in the country and requiring mask wearing in some settings. Zhong Nanshan, a Chinese respiratory disease expert, said it could take some time to reach a conclusion on the harmfulness of the new variant, state television reported on Sunday.Though epidemiologists say travel curbs may be too late to stop Omicron from circulating, many countries — including the US, Brazil, Canada, EU nations, Australia, Japan, South Korea and Thailand — have announced travel bans or restrictions on Southern Africa.
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