Omicron was in the Netherlands days before it was reported in South Africa

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BRUSSELS – The Omicron variant was already in the Netherlands when South Africa warned the World Health Organization about it last week, the Dutch health authorities said on Tuesday, increasing fears and confusion over the new version of coronavirus in a tired world in hopes that it had left it worst of the pandemic behind.

The Dutch RIVM Health Institute found omicron in samples from 19 and 23 November. The WHO said South Africa first reported the variant to the UN Health Agency on 24 November.

It is still unclear where or when the variant first appeared – but that has not stopped cautious nations from rushing to impose travel restrictions, especially for visitors coming from southern Africa. These measures have been criticized by South Africa and the WHO has called on them to note their limited impact.

Much is still not known about the variant – although the WHO warned that the global risk from the variant is “very high”, and early evidence suggests it could be more contagious.

The Dutch announcement on Tuesday further clouded the timeline for when the new variant actually appeared. Earlier, the Dutch had said they found the variant among passengers arriving from South Africa on Friday – but these new cases precede it.

Authorities in the East German city of Leipzig meanwhile said on Tuesday that they had confirmed an infection with the omicron variant in a 39-year-old man who had neither been abroad nor had contact with anyone who had been, the news agency dpa reported. Leipzig is located in the eastern state of Saxony, which currently has Germany’s highest total coronavirus infection rate.

Meanwhile, Japan and France announced their first case of the new variant on Tuesday.

French authorities confirmed its presence on the French island territory of Reunion in the Indian Ocean. Patrick Mavingui, a microbiologist at the island’s infectious disease research clinic, said the person tested positive for the new variant is a 53-year-old man who had traveled to Mozambique and stopped in South Africa before returning to Reunion.

The man was quarantined. He has “muscle aches and fatigue,” Mavingui said according to public television Reunion 1ers.

One day after banning all foreign visitors as an emergency measure against the variant, Japan also confirmed its first case of a visitor traveling from Namibia. A government spokesman said the patient, a man in his 30s, tested positive on arrival at Narita airport on Sunday and was isolated and being treated at a hospital.

Travel bans also continued to fall on Tuesday.

Cambodia prevented entry for travelers from 10 African countries citing the threat posed by the variant. The move came just two weeks after Cambodia reopened its borders to fully vaccinated travelers.

While the WHO has called for border closures, the WHO has stressed that while scientists are looking for evidence to better understand this variant, countries should speed up vaccinations as soon as possible.

The WHO said there are “significant uncertainties” about the omicron variant. However, it said that preliminary evidence raises the possibility that the variant has mutations that can help it both avoid an immune system response and increase its ability to spread from one person to another.

Despite global concern, doctors in South Africa report that patients mostly suffer from mild symptoms so far. However, they warn that it is early, and most of the new cases are in people in their 20s and 30s, who generally do not get as sick from COVID-19 as elderly patients.

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