Omicron variant: World races to contain new Covid threat

A woman receives a Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine in Strasbourg, eastern France (Jean-Francois Badias)

Nearly two years into the Covid-19 pandemic, the world is racing to contain a new coronavirus variant potentially more dangerous than the one that has fuelled relentless waves of infection on every continent.

A World Health Organisation (WHO) panel named the variant Omicron and classified it as a highly transmissible virus of concern, the same category that includes the predominant Delta variant, which is still a scourge driving higher cases of sickness and death in Europe and parts of the United States.