South Korea’s 5 Omicron Cases All Connected to Travel to Nigeria

South Korea confirmed on Wednesday that five Omicron cases were linked to people who travelled from Nigeria last week.

The Associated Press reported that two of the cases involving the new variant were linked to women who traveled to Nigeria on Nov. 23 and flew back to South Korea.

The remaining three cases are linked to a couple who travelled from Nigeria to South Korea on November 24, and their friends picked them up from the airport and drove them home.

Choi Seung-ho, an official with the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA), said the couple was fully vaccinated, but the friend who picked them up and their teenage child were not.

Paramedics said they were genetically sequencing the teenager and relatives of friends who drove the couple home to see if anyone had contracted the new variant.

So far, none of the four have developed any serious symptoms. Another KDCA official, Park Young-joon, said they were reported to have mild respiratory symptoms and muscle pain.

With the arrival of the new Omicron variant, South Korea announced that new travel restrictions will go into effect for all passengers for at least two weeks. Everyone arriving from abroad, regardless of vaccination or citizenship status, must quarantine for at least 10 days.

See below for more AP coverage.

The country has banned short-term foreign travelers from eight southern African countries, including South Africa, from Sunday in a bid to ward off Omicron, a virus believed to be more contagious than other versions. The same rules will now be extended to foreigners from Nigeria, officials said.

While Omicron’s emergence has sparked global alarm and forced countries to tighten borders, scientists say it’s unclear whether the variant is more contagious or dangerous than other strains, including the devastating Delta.

The discovery of South Korea’s first Omicron case comes as the delta-fueled surge has the country grappling with its worst wave of the virus since the pandemic began. The country’s daily new cases surpassed 5,000 for the first time on Wednesday, while a surge in transmission is pushing hospitalizations and deaths to record highs.

Amid growing concerns about overwhelmed hospitals, health experts are urging officials to reimpose stricter social distancing rules that were relaxed last month to lessen the economic impact of the pandemic.

Most of the 5,123 new cases came from the capital Seoul and the surrounding metropolitan area, where officials say nearly 90 percent of the intensive care units designated for COVID-19 patients are already occupied, KDCA said.

There were more than 720 severe or critically ill patients, a record high. The death toll in the country reached 3,658 after 30 to 50 deaths a day in recent weeks.

The government eased social distancing rules in early November and fully reopened schools starting Nov. 22, in what officials said was the first step toward returning to pre-pandemic normalcy. In allowing larger social gatherings and longer indoor dining times, officials hope the country’s increased vaccination rates will help reduce hospitalizations and deaths, even as the virus continues to spread.

However, health workers are grappling with a rise in severe cases and deaths among people in their 60s and older who have either refused the vaccine or had waning immunity following an early vaccination campaign that began in February.

The spread has prevented the government from taking further steps to ease social distancing, but officials have so far resisted calls to restore stricter gathering rules, citing economic concerns and fatigue and frustration over extended virus restrictions.

“We cannot go backwards by reversing efforts to gradually return to normal life,” President Moon Jae-in said at Monday’s virus conference.

Instead, officials are scrambling to speed up the administration of enhanced injections and share hospital capacity between the greater Seoul area and other areas with smaller outbreaks to prevent the hospital system from being overwhelmed. Officials also said they would improve the medical response to treat most mild cases at home.

As of Wednesday morning, nearly 12,000 people with the virus were being treated at home, said Son Youngrae, a senior official at the health ministry.

The Korean Federation of Medical Activists for Health Rights, which represents doctors and health workers, issued a statement criticizing the government’s “underprepared” return to normal policy that puts lives at risk. It said the government should restore stricter social distancing rules and procure more beds from private hospitals for COVID-19 treatment.

“While the government has said it will focus on increasing vaccination rates, this will not solve the current crisis immediately, as it will take time for increased vaccination rates to take effect,” the group said. “To say that home treatment will become the standard (for mild cases) is just a way of rationalizing the current situation, where a shortage of hospital beds is forcing many virus patients to wait at home. It’s basically a manifesto to forgo treatment.”