Thailand reimposes mandatory quarantine for visitors following first omicron case locally

The World Health Organization (WHO) has said the Omicron variant of the coronavirus is spreading faster than the Delta strain and is causing infections in people already vaccinated or who have recovered from the COVID-19 disease.

“There is no consistent evidence that Omicron is spreading significantly faster than the Delta variant,” the UN agency’s chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a news briefing in Geneva on Monday.

The warning came as health officials in the United States said that Omicron now accounts for 73.2 percent of new cases over the past week, and as the country’s first known death linked to the variant is reported in the state of Texas.

Meanwhile, Thailand will reinstate its mandatory COVID-19 quarantine for foreign visitors and scrap a quarantine waiver from Tuesday, a government spokeswoman said.

SOURCE: NEWS AGENCIES