Officials in Scotland suspect community transmission of the Omicron coronavirus variant in the UK-constituent country since they have not been able to link all six reported cases to international travel.

News agencies quoted Nicola Sturgeon, First Minister of Scotland, as saying in London on Monday that, at this stage, it is known that not all of them have recent travel history.

Nor have Scottish officials learnt of any links the infected persons may have had with the others who have travelled to countries in southern Africa where the variant was originally detected, Sturgeon said.

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This opens up a situation where officials have failed to trace the source of the infection at least in some cases — a signature feature that, more than any other, could signal community transmission.

Sturgeon said there “might already be some community transmission” but stressed that “there is no evidence yet that this is indeed the case. No evidence has emerged from the enhanced surveillance launched ever since”.

Suspected COP26 link

She was also not able to rule “100 per cent” that any of the cases were linked to the COP26 climate conference, which took place in Glasgow earlier this month. But it didn’t seem probable given the timeline, since the conference had concluded on November 13.

The Scottish and Welsh governments have urged British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to declare tougher entry restrictions than those announced by him over the weekend. Scotland and Wales want the UK government to raise the minimum self-quarantine time for all passengers arriving in the UK from two days to eight days.

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Meanwhile, the omicron variant may have arrived in North America, with Canada reporting the first case on Sunday.

Canada’s health minister Jean-Yves Duclos said two cases reported in Ontario were confirmed as the Omicron variant, which has been called a ‘variant of concern’ by the World Health Organisation.

Anthony Fauci, Chief Medical Adviser to US President Joe Biden, has already gone on record saying he ‘would not be surprised if Omicron is already in the US’, just across Canada’s southern border.

Growing global spread

The variant has been found in countries ranging from Australia to Israel, Botswana to Britain, and Hong Kong in Asia, since it was first identified in South Africa. No case has been detected in India so far, but officials are awaiting the test results of a traveller who arrived in Karnataka from South Africa.

The Omicron variant has been detected in the following countries so far: Australia (2 cases); Austria (1); Belgium (1): Botswana (19); Canada (3); Czech Republic (1); Denmark (2); Germany (3); Hong Kong (3); Israel (1); Italy: (1); The Netherlands (13); Portugal (13); South Africa (77); Spain (1); and The UK (9).

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