After the World Health Organization officially announced the discovery of a new coronavirus variant on Friday, people around the world are wondering what they need to know when about the severity, rate of transmission, and the state of travel bans. Below you’ll find a collection of the most recent stories published about the omicron variant.

Does omicron cause only mild illness? The jury is still out.

New York Times

Summary: While the current cases of the omicron variant point to milder coronavirus cases in a younger population, scientists warn there is not yet enough data to determine the variant’s severity. Additionally, since the variant was only discovered a few days ago, it may be too early in the timeline to know if it leads to severe illness or hospitalizations.

Read the full story here.

High alert: World scurries to contain new COVID variant

Associated Press

Summary: On Saturday, travel bans and restrictions were quickly put in place following Friday’s WHO announcement in hopes of preventing another surge. A flight from South Africa to the Netherlands found 61 people who tested positive for COVID-19, who are isolating and being tested for the variant.

Read the full story here.

What to know about travel after the discovery of the omicron variant

Washington Post

Summary: Travel bans from South Africa, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, and Zimbabwe will start Monday in the United States. The European Union, Britain, France, Israel, and Japan implemented their bans last week.

Read the full story here.

More omicron cases pop up as world rushes to learn more

Associated Press

Summary: While the omicron variant was first discovered last week in southern Africa, the new variant has quickly made its way around the globe. This has led scientists and officials to wonder about the severity and transmissibility of the variant plus the effectiveness of current vaccines against omicron.

Read the full story here.

As omicron variant circles the globe, African nations are blamed and banned

New York Times

Summary: As travel bans have been announced, some officials are questioning the effectiveness of the bans and criticizing the nations putting them in place for withholding vaccines to other countries.

Read the full story here.

How omicron, the new COVID-19 variant, got its name

New York Times

Summary: Like the previous variants, delta and alpha, the World Health Organization has picked the next letter in the Greek alphabet to identify the new variant. The WHO’s naming system aims to make identification less confusing and prevent names from causing any offense to certain regions or ethnicities.

Read the full story here.

Fauci says US must prepare for omicron variant: ‘Inevitably it will be here’

Global health authorities said they’re monitoring a new COVID-19 variant first identified in Botswana, with the World Health Organization saying Friday the new strain, dubbed omicron, is a variant of concern.

Previously referred to as B.1.1.529, the WHO urged countries to step up monitoring and surveillance, citing the high number of mutations and early indications that the virus was spreading in South Africa. The global health agency said it’s still not clear whether the variant is more transmissible or causes more serious illness, or if it affects vaccines. And that such studies will take time.

Scientists have now confirmed 87 cases of the new variant — 77 in South Africa, six in Botswana, two in Hong Kong, and one each in Israel and Belgium, though hundreds more diagnoses are expected.

“We don’t know very much about this yet,” said WHO COVID-19 Technical Lead Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, speaking at an “Ask WHO” briefing Thursday. But concern about this variant stems from its “large number of mutations,” Kerkhove said, which could “have an impact on how the virus behaves.”

Dr. Anthony Fauci told CNN on Friday that scientists from the United States and South Africa will discuss the new variant on Friday, as early indications suggest it could be spreading in South Africa.

“Literally,” Fauci added, “it’s something that, in real time, we’re learning more and more about.”

Concerns about this variant already have prompted the U.K., EU and India to propose travel restrictions from South Africa. The World Health Organization, meanwhile, is urging calm, saying it’s premature to close borders.

There are thousands of COVID-19 variants, with new ones emerging all the time. Usually new variants disappear quickly because they’re overrun by a more dominant strain.

The now-dominant delta variant is so highly transmissible that most of the new variants that have cropped up in recent months have been unable to gain a foothold. In the United States, the delta variant comprises an estimated 99.9% of all cases.MORE: Why are coronavirus cases and hospitalizations on the rise in the US?

“There’s obviously this tension between crying wolf and exacerbating concerns about the variants, but also being caught flat-footed and not responding swiftly enough,” said Dr. John Brownstein, chief innovation office at Boston Children’s Hospital and an ABC News Contributor. “This is where we have to cautiously respond without inciting panic, because this could easily turn out to be a variant similar to others that have never really panned out to be global concerns.”

Scientists across the globe constantly monitor all newly emerged variants to see if they’re spreading in a meaningful way, and global health authorities have said they’re monitoring this new variant closely.

Pfizer and partner BioNTech said they will conduct experiments to see if the new variant can chip away at vaccine efficacy. Vaccine experts said current COVID-19 vaccines, which rely on genetic technology, could be easily updated to better combat emerging variants — though so far, that hasn’t been necessary.

Eight variants are currently being monitored by the WHO, which designates particularly worrisome strains as variants of “interest” or “concern.” When they no longer pose a significant public health threat, the variants are reclassified — so far during the pandemic, 13 have been removed from the WHO’s list.MORE: Germany and Austria seeing COVID cases rise among unvaccinated population

But public health experts said the emergence of variants underscores the urgent need to vaccinate everyone on the planet.

“It gives us a lens into why as epidemiologists we’ve been so concerned about global vaccine equity,” Brownstein added. “It’s a recognition that with not enough people around the globe immunized, it creates more opportunities for variants to emerge, and this is a very good example of that.”

ABC News’ Guy Davies, Josh Hoyos, Aicha Elhammar, Zoe Chevalier, Liezl Thom and Zoe Magee contributed to this report.

Classification of Omicron (B.1.1.529): SARS-CoV-2 Variant of Concern

26 November 2021 Statement Reading time: 2 min (616 words)

The Technical Advisory Group on SARS-CoV-2 Virus Evolution (TAG-VE) is an independent group of experts that periodically monitors and evaluates the evolution of SARS-CoV-2 and assesses if specific mutations and combinations of mutations alter the behaviour of the virus. The TAG-VE was convened on 26 November 2021 to assess the SARS-CoV-2 variant: B.1.1.529.

The B.1.1.529 variant was first reported to WHO from South Africa on 24 November 2021. The epidemiological situation in South Africa has been characterized by three distinct peaks in reported cases, the latest of which was predominantly the Delta variant. In recent weeks, infections have increased steeply, coinciding with the detection of B.1.1.529 variant. The first known confirmed B.1.1.529 infection was from a specimen collected on 9 November 2021.

This variant has a large number of mutations, some of which are concerning. Preliminary evidence suggests an increased risk of reinfection with this variant, as compared to other VOCs. The number of cases of this variant appears to be increasing in almost all provinces in South Africa. Current SARS-CoV-2 PCR diagnostics continue to detect this variant. Several labs have indicated that for one widely used PCR test, one of the three target genes is not detected (called S gene dropout or S gene target failure) and this test can therefore be used as marker for this variant, pending sequencing confirmation. Using this approach, this variant has been detected at faster rates than previous surges in infection, suggesting that this variant may have a growth advantage.

There are a number of studies underway and the TAG-VE will continue to evaluate this variant. WHO will communicate new findings with Member States and to the public as needed.

Based on the evidence presented indicative of a detrimental change in COVID-19 epidemiology, the TAG-VE has advised WHO that this variant should be designated as a VOC, and the WHO has designated B.1.1.529 as a VOC, named Omicron.

As such, countries are asked to do the following:

• enhance surveillance and sequencing efforts to better understand circulating SARS-CoV-2 variants.
• submit complete genome sequences and associated metadata to a publicly available database, such as GISAID.
• report initial cases/clusters associated with VOC infection to WHO through the IHR mechanism.
• where capacity exists and in coordination with the international community, perform field investigations and laboratory assessments to improve understanding of the potential impacts of the VOC on COVID-19 epidemiology, severity, effectiveness of public health and social measures, diagnostic methods, immune responses, antibody neutralization, or other relevant characteristics.

Individuals are reminded to take measures to reduce their risk of COVID-19, including proven public health and social measures such as wearing well-fitting masks, hand hygiene, physical distancing, improving ventilation of indoor spaces, avoiding crowded spaces, and getting vaccinated.

For reference, WHO has working definitions for SARS-CoV-2 Variant of Interest (VOI) and Variant of Concern (VOC).

A SARS-CoV-2 VOI is a SARS-CoV-2 variant:

• with genetic changes that are predicted or known to affect virus characteristics such as transmissibility, disease severity, immune escape, diagnostic or therapeutic escape; AND
• that has been identified as causing significant community transmission or multiple COVID-19 clusters, in multiple countries with increasing relative prevalence alongside increasing number of cases over time, or other apparent epidemiological impacts to suggest an emerging risk to global public health. 

A SARS-CoV-2 VOC is a SARS-CoV-2 variant that meets the definition of a VOI (see above) and, through a comparative assessment, has been demonstrated to be associated with one or more of the following changes at a degree of global public health significance:

• increase in transmissibility or detrimental change in COVID-19 epidemiology; OR
• increase in virulence or change in clinical disease presentation; OR
• decrease in effectiveness of public health and social measures or available diagnostics, vaccines, therapeutics