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BREAKING: Indonesia reports first case of Omicron variant
The case was detected on Wednesday evening and was an employee at the Wisma Atlet hospital in Jakarta.
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Members of Indonesia Red Cross prepare to sterilize Kemayoran Athletes VIllage in Jakarta, on Saturday, March 21, 2020. The Athlete village will be turned into a COVID-19 isolation facility with The government reallocate Rp 62.3 trillion (US$3.9 billion) of state spending from the 2020 budget to tackle COVID-19, focusing on health care, the disbursement of social funds and financial incentives for enterprises.-JP/Seto Wardhana/Adi/20 (JP/Seto Wardhana)
Indonesia has identified its first case of the Omicron coronavirus variant, Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin said on Thursday.
The case was detected on Wednesday evening and was an employee at the Wisma Atlet hospital in Jakarta.
On Tuesday, the World Health Organization warned Omicron was spreading at an unprecedented rate and urged countries to act, as drug maker Pfizer said its coronavirus pill was effective against the variant.
Omicron, first detected by South Africa and reported to the WHO on November 24, has a large number of mutations, setting alarm bells ringing since its discovery.
Early data suggests it can be resistant to vaccines and is more transmissible than the Delta variant, which was first identified in India and accounts for the bulk of the world's coronavirus cases.
Read also: Indonesia to expedite Omicron booster rollout
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters the strain had been reported in 77 countries and "probably" spread to most nations undetected "at a rate we have not seen with any previous variant".
Omicron now accounts for around three percent of cases in the United States, a figure that is expected to rise rapidly as has been seen in other countries.
The United States is the nation hit hardest by the pandemic, and it crossed 800,000 known Covid-19 deaths on Tuesday, according to a Johns Hopkins University trac
