New COVID-19 variant raising concerns

Countries including the United States are imposing travel restrictions and urging caution and vaccination while a new COVID-19 variant, named the omicron variant by World Health Organization, and its impacts are studied.

U.S. travel restrictions from several countries in southern Africa where the variant was first identified went into effect today, and other countries around the world also have imposed travel restrictions on that region, while scientists are telling the world it is too soon to know if the new variant is more dangerous than previous variations.

The variant has raised conce...