With Omicron now confirmed to be in Sydney, if there is any additional community spread, this could be mean more hoops for Australian's hoping to head overseas in the next few weeks. Worst case scenario is that countries block Australian's from entering altogether.
Agree.
'SMH" says:
Urgent genomic testing has confirmed two overseas travellers coming into Sydney were infected with the emerging Omicron variant.
“Both passengers came to Sydney from southern Africa on the evening of Saturday November 27. They underwent testing on arrival and tested positive for COVID-19 late last night,” NSW Health said in a statement issued on Sunday evening.
“The two positive cases, who were asymptomatic, are in isolation in the Special Health Accommodation. Both people are fully vaccinated.”
The two passengers were among 14 people from southern Africa who arrived on Qatar Airways QR908 from Doha, arriving around 7pm on Saturday.
The remaining 12 passengers are undertaking 14 days of hotel quarantine.
Around 260 passengers and air crew were deemed close contacts and have been directed to isolate.
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What's most interesting is not the new virus variant - media and government panic again, yawn - but how this inbound QR flight had c.240 passengers (plus c.20 crew) = 260. We've bcome used to reports of inbound international flights with 25 not 250 patrons during mandaytory hotel quarantine months.