It all started on November 18, with a patient in his 30s who said that he had been feeling tired and with pain in the body for days.
"He had a bit of a headache, he didn't really have a sore throat, he described it more as an itch, no cough or loss of taste or smell."
Both the patient and the rest of his family members tested positive for covid.
Throughout the day other patients with similar symptoms appeared.
probably the omicron variant already circulates in countries that are adopting travel restrictions.

“Your doctors can focus on the delta variant and miss it, because it's easy to miss. If it weren't for the fact that we in South Africa hadn't seen covid cases in recent weeks, we would have overlooked it as well. "

The omicron variant was reported by the South African authorities to the World Health Organization last Wednesday and declared a variant of concern on Friday by the international organization.

Initial information seems to show that it has a higher transmissibility and a higher risk of reinfection than other known variants of the coronavirus due to its large number of mutations, but scientists warn that more information is necessary to reach a definitive conclusion.
Since its identification, a growing number of countries have reported omicron cases such as Germany, the United Kingdom, Belgium, the Netherlands and Italy.

Although the WHO has advised against the adoption of travel restrictions, several countries, including the United Kingdom, the United States and states of the European Union, have closed their doors to travelers from South Africa, Botswana, Swaziland, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia and Zimbabwe for fear of the spread of the new variant of the virus that causes covid.

Others have gone further: Morocco has suspended the arrival of international flights for two weeks and Israel has banned foreigners from entering its territory.