More importantly, is whoever named this new strain a futurama fan? Or simply coincidence.

considering Pfizer themselves just said that they won’t know how effective the vaccine is for two weeks, care to share your source for the 30%?

Maybe have a look at Botswana where it was first discovered on 11 November & the crisis there.

Remember what AID's stands for?

https://www.avert.org/professionals/...-0GytjFIxp3hkc

it was on the news, however they may have made a mistake as it has 50 mutations with 30 new spike proteins

AIDS- Aviation induced divorce syndrome!

NEWS = Never Educate With Sensationalism

The only evidence that is coming from Omnicron so far is that it is reinfecting previously infected individuals, which would suggest it could reduce vaccine effectiveness as well. Just another lesson to be learned from letting the virus spreads leads to mutations that eventually overcome human defenses, hopefully its less severe, rather than worse.

Much lower death rate from COVID in Africa (except South Africa) compared to other regions throughout the pandemic thus far. Could be from a number of reasons but most likely due to very young population demographics.

I would say the average Africans immune system is armed to the teeth from exposure to everything. There's also the lower age and higher fitness of the general population as well. Not so many fat, diabetic couch surfers in most of Africa, where in SA its closer to 'western' lifestyles. They also are very in-tune with epidemics and avoiding getting sick, you wont see many of them laughing at the spread of sickness like in the west.

Standby for the imminent closure of our international border.......and I so advise!! (there goes the holidays).

I doubt they will close it straight away, they may restrict travel inbound from certain countries.

They will watch it keenly tho to see the spread.

Already happening:

Federal government to announce changes to quarantine for South African arrivals

The variant has been detected in or from people who’ve been to Egypt, Israel, Hong Kong, Belgium. It’s too late to contain out of Africa.

But there’s some preliminary statements from SA that it’s not causing too much severe illness and vaccines are still keeping people mostly out of hospital, so caution and a bit of calmness needed.

Already vaccine manufacturers have stated they can tailor booster shots specific to the variant, so no doubt this will trigger anti vaxxers to claim the variant was created by big pharma all along......

mRNA booster vaccines can be tweaked as such to cater for new variants so shouldn’t be a disaster in the West. No doubt they are already working on it.

2022/2023 was always going to be a case of cat and mouse with variants and outbreaks. We need to sort of cycle out of the exit phase with numerous bumps along the way. It will die off eventually......

If it’s going to trigger a firm border again, Keep the nations border shut to protect the state borders. We cannot go back to what we are now getting out of. I can see some states shutting off to the world again.

Fingers crossed! Unfortunately caution and calmness don’t get clicks! Just saw the Greg Hunt press conference and some questions from the media present suggested he wasn’t going far enough - one of them asked about future lockdowns etc. FFS! The parasitic media has a lot to answer for in how this pandemic has unfolded.

Waste of time if it’s more contagious than Delta. We couldn’t contain that in hotel quarantine. No chance of containing this. Quarantine camps? Probably, but Howard Springs is still the only dedicated facility.

Definite chance state borders may close again, or stay closed, if Omicron is found in Vic and NSW in the next couple of weeks until more is known.

Moderna has issued press releases indicating they’re already working on an Omicron specific booster. Pfizer and Moderna indicating 100 days to have new variant specific vaccines to market.

Antivirals should be here soon and as they target a different area they should still be effective.

At least keep Vic and NSW open to each other. Highly likely by the looks of things, the others well we sort of know what they will do.

I’m betting that WA will not open its borders any time soon.

We should know within a few weeks the impact that Omicron will have on vaccine efficacy.

That shouldn’t affect WAs border opening timeline, so of course it will.

Keep dreaming SOPS you scared little person

Im not scared at all. Just expressing an opinion.

The government has already shut the borders to countries affected by this variant. It’s effective immediately which means they know this is likely a highly virulent strain. It’s not a massive leap from listing countries to a return to fortress Australia.

That’s my guess anyway, I wonder if we have learned any lessons from delta.

Won't happen before the federal election is over. Can't have that pesky Scottie from Marketing visiting and 14 days quarantine sort of stuffs Scottie's electioneering up.