Moderna made an announcement Sunday. One more thing you might be grateful for this Thanksgiving! It’s a new vaccine created to fight against a new variant called Omicron. On Sunday, Moderna’s chief Paul Burton told Axios that a modified version of the vaccine; [against the newly identified Omicron strain variant] may be accessible for the public by early 2022.
Former head of the Food and Drug Administration [Dr. Scott Gottlieb] said Sunday the variant was more than likey present in the U.S.; but we ‘have a better handle now than we did last year’.
“It’s almost definitely here already, just looking at the number of cases the coming off planes this weekend. It’s almost a certainty that there have been cases that have gotten into the United States,” Gottlieb said in an interview with “Face the Nation.”
“We’re in a much better place now than we were a year ago when B.1.1.7 first arrived. Or even when Delta first arrived. We are sequencing about a hundred thousand cases a week; which is very good. It’s about 20% of all the diagnosed cases. CDC is also going to set up this week a new surveillance system specifically for this variant.”
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Omicron Strain Recently Found in November 2021
Moreover, according to The Washington Post; the new variant is being found in other countries. Thus, many legislations bind up their borders for travel. However, some South African researchers; just days ago located the variant.
Travel Bans Due To New Strain Anxiety
Since the new discovery, Israel banned entry to foreigners; then and Morocco said it would suspend all incoming flights for two weeks starting Monday — among the most drastic of a growing raft of travel curbs being imposed by nations around the world as they scrambled to slow the variant’s spread. Scientists in several places — from Hong Kong to Europe — have confirmed its presence. The Netherlands reported 13 omicron cases on Sunday, and Australia found two.
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