Professor calls for precautions against the new variant: Let’s make sure we are not late

Prof. Dr. Derya UNUTMAZ, the principal researcher at the Jackson Laboratory Institute in the USA has made the following warning regarding the new variant named Omicron.

“This new variant that came out in South Africa (GA) has worried me for the first time since delta. It looks like it has collected the most ideal mutations for the virus of the variants so far. It is rapidly replacing the delta in GA and travel from this country should be stopped immediately. It is also possible to detect it by PCR.

The UK has put South Africa on the red list for travel because of this variant- that is, all flights in and out are banned from tomorrow. Although the data is very new, we should also ban it as a precaution, because if our concern is true, it may be too late. I’m sure the Health Minister Koca is closely monitoring the situation. We have been lucky that this variant has been detected very quickly. But if it is more contagious than Delta, as we are concerned, this means we have very little time to take precautions, so it’s pretty urgent”.