After being discovered in South Africa, the new potentially more contagious omicron variant of the coronavirus has appeared in more European nations, leaving governments around the world scrambling to stop the spread.

The UK strengthened its rules on wearing masks and testing international visitors after finding two cases. New cases were reported on Saturday in Germany and Italy, with the variant also being detected in travelers in Belgium, Israel, and Hong Kong.

In the United States, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious diseases expert, said he wouldn’t be shocked if the omicron version was already in the United States, too.

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He also said that “We have not detected it yet, but when you have a virus that is showing this degree of transmissibility … it almost invariably is ultimately going to go essentially all over,”

There is a huge fear that the new variant will be more resistant to the protection offered by vaccines and they are developing over the world that the pandemic and associated lockdown restrictions will stay longer than expected.

Nearly two years after the outbreak of the pandemic, which has claimed the lives of over five million people around the world, countries are on high alert. Many countries have already imposed travel restrictions on flights from southern Africa as they seek to buy time to see if the omicron version is more transmissible than the present dominant delta variant.

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