MELBOURNE (Reuters) -Australia imposed new restrictions on Saturday on people who have been to nine southern African countries, as the new Omicron variant https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/japan-tighten-border-controls-s-africa-others-new-virus-variant-jiji-2021-11-26 of COVID-19 raises concerns about another wave of the pandemic.

These countries include South Africa, Namibia and Zimbabwe.

Greg Hunt, Minister for Health, announced that immediately the government would ban any non-citizens residing in these countries. They will also require quarantines of 14 days duration for Australian citizens and dependents returning to those countries.

This applies to skilled migrants and international students who arrived from Australia’s travel bubble countries. They have not been within 14 days of arriving in one of these nine countries.

“If further action is required by medical evidence, we will take it. This could include expanding or strengthening restrictions,” he stated.

Everyone who is already in Australia or has traveled to any one of these countries in the previous 14 days should immediately be isolated and tested.

For two weeks, the Australian government will suspend flights to and from nine countries in southern Africa.

Twenty South African travellers are being held in quarantine at Howard Springs in the Northern Territory. Nineteen of these have received negative coronavirus testing. Hunt indicated that Hunt is not certain if Omicron is the positive variant.

On Friday, the world was alerted by the discovery of the variant. It contains a spike protein that is significantly different than the one used to make vaccines.

Australia eased international border restrictions early in the month during the pandemic, allowing residents who have been fully vaccinated to leave the country and return home without being quarantined.

For most of 2018, Australia was free from infections, but an epidemic of highly contagious Delta virus in June caused widespread panic across the country. There have been approximately 205,000 deaths and 1985 cases so far. This is lower than in many countries of the advanced world.