beijing. cnn is monitoring developments on the omicron variant across the globe. let s take you to our reporters starting in asia. i m kristie lu stout in hong kong and today we learn that all three cases of the omicron variant in the city are imported. hong kong has also strengthened its already tight border restrictions banning non-residents from a growing list of countries. today four additional countries have been added to that list. angola, nigeria and zambia despite having three confirmed cases in this territory, china remains confident. a chinese spokesman says the winter olympics will continue as planned despite the emergence of the omicron variant. it s hard to guarantee success given all the uncertainty about this new variant. i m fred pleitgen in berlin as germany has four confirmed cases of the omicron variant. now this is a major concern for germany as the country is in the midst of a massive wave of new
horse has left the barn. we know that not only is the virus widespread. this variant is wyatt spread, not just in southern africa where the bans mainly focus on south africa. may have been circulating in south africa before that even so that possibility is so the way the bans are being i.mented don t make sense. president biden says the restrictions aren t meant to be a firewall but to buy some time. is that a valid argument. look, we know that travel bans can be helpful in delaying the arrival of a virus in the country, and even to do that but the effectivity of the virus has to be substantially lower than what we anticipate for the virus and the section thing is you have to shut down 90% to 95%
countries and territories have confirmed faces of this coronavirus varants and one of those countries the netherlands has learned that omicron was there previously known and maybe days before soften officials first alerted the the world to the variant s existence. let s discuss with the director of yale global health. doctor, thank you for being with us. there s been several countries that have imposed travel restrictions to try to slow down omicron. there s a case in the netherlands and also learned of a case of this variant in germany not linked to travel so indicating community spread, and in that case what do you think the travel bans will accomplish. unfortunately when it comes to containing this variant the
to sell that from from bill and sell the perks of it and it s going to take time to be implemented. it does come as his top code of officials are briefing reporters on what they know about the new variant and this is something that scientists are very much evaluating and they are in touch with labs across the united states and they wait to see if this variant is here present in the united states because we know officials said they could be here and if not here yet they they could be here. they are using test samples to see if it s happened. how much it s here will be key to try to contain the spread which is a big factor of what they are do, and so as they are waiting to get more details and able to provide further updates to the public about this, the one thing you re seeing the white house do is push those booster shots, and you are right, ana. they did change that guidance
coronavirus infections anyway. meanwhile, next door in the netherlands the authorities there say that the omicron variant arrived there at least a week earlier than previously thought. in fact, the authorities say that they detected omicron in a sample from november 19th. i m dan mckenzie in johannesburg. officials around the world are urging people not to panic as more and more countries are confirming more cases of the omicron variant including the netherlands which may have evidence of community transmission. more and more communities are locking off soften africa. we were at a lab where they started to see evidence of this variant possibly as early as late october which indicates that this variant could have been circulating for some time. our thanks to all of those reporters. right now at least 19