by JIM GOMEZ, As­so­ci­at­ed Press

MANI­LA, Philip­pines (AP) — Mea­sures used to counter the delta vari­ant should re­main the foun­da­tion for fight­ing the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic, even in the face of the new omi­cron ver­sion of the virus, World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion of­fi­cials said Fri­day, while ac­knowl­edg­ing that the trav­el re­stric­tions im­posed by some coun­tries may buy time.

While about three dozen coun­tries world­wide have re­port­ed omi­cron in­fec­tions, in­clud­ing In­dia on Thurs­day, the num­bers so far are small out­side of South Africa, which is fac­ing a rapid rise in COVID-19 cas­es and where the new vari­ant may be be­com­ing dom­i­nant. Still, much re­mains un­clear about omi­cron, in­clud­ing whether it is more con­ta­gious, as some health au­thor­i­ties sus­pect, whether it makes peo­ple more se­ri­ous­ly ill, or whether it can evade vac­cine pro­tec­tion.

“Bor­der con­trol can de­lay the virus com­ing in and buy time. But every coun­try and every com­mu­ni­ty must pre­pare for new surges in cas­es,” Dr. Takeshi Ka­sai, the WHO re­gion­al di­rec­tor for the West­ern Pa­cif­ic, told re­porters Fri­day dur­ing a vir­tu­al news con­fer­ence from the Philip­pines.

“The pos­i­tive news in all of this is that none of the in­for­ma­tion we have cur­rent­ly about omi­cron sug­gests we need to change the di­rec­tions of our re­sponse.”

That means con­tin­u­ing to push for high­er vac­ci­na­tion rates, abid­ing by so­cial-dis­tanc­ing guide­lines, and wear­ing masks, among oth­er mea­sures, said WHO Re­gion­al Emer­gency Di­rec­tor Dr. Ba­batunde Olowokure.

He added that health sys­tems must “en­sure we are treat­ing the right pa­tients in the right place at the right time, and so there­fore en­sur­ing that ICU beds are avail­able, par­tic­u­lar­ly for those who need them.”

Ka­sai warned: “We can­not be com­pla­cent.”

WHO has pre­vi­ous­ly urged against bor­der clo­sures, not­ing they of­ten have lim­it­ed ef­fect and can cause ma­jor dis­rup­tions. Of­fi­cials in south­ern Africa, where the omi­cron vari­ant was first iden­ti­fied, have de­cried re­stric­tions on trav­ellers from the re­gion, say­ing they are be­ing pun­ished for alert­ing the world to the mu­tant strain.

Sci­en­tists are work­ing fu­ri­ous­ly to learn more about omi­cron, which has been des­ig­nat­ed a vari­ant of con­cern be­cause of the num­ber of mu­ta­tions and be­cause ear­ly in­for­ma­tion sug­gests it may be more trans­mis­si­ble than oth­er vari­ants, Ka­sai said.

A few coun­tries in West­ern Pa­cif­ic re­gion are fac­ing surges that be­gan be­fore omi­cron was iden­ti­fied, though COVID-19 cas­es and deaths in many oth­ers have de­creased or plateaued, Ka­sai said. But that could change.

Among the places that have found the vari­ant in the re­gion are Aus­tralia, Hong Kong, Japan, South Ko­rea, Sin­ga­pore and Malaysia — and it is like­ly to crop up in more places.

The emer­gence of omi­cron is of par­tic­u­lar con­cern for or­ga­niz­ers of the Bei­jing Win­ter Olympic Games, now about two months away.

Bei­jing is adopt­ing a se­ries of mea­sures to re­duce the risk the virus will spread dur­ing the Games, Zhao Wei­dong, spokesper­son for the or­ga­niz­ing com­mit­tee, told re­porters at a brief­ing on Fri­day.

Chi­na has adopt­ed a ze­ro-tol­er­ance pol­i­cy to­ward COVID-19 trans­mis­sion and has some of the world’s strictest bor­der con­trols. Games par­tic­i­pants will have to live and com­pete in­side a bub­ble, and on­ly spec­ta­tors who are res­i­dents of Chi­na and have been vac­ci­nat­ed and test­ed will be per­mit­ted at venues.

Glob­al­ly, cas­es have been in­creas­ing for sev­en con­sec­u­tive weeks and the num­ber of deaths has start­ed to rise again, too, dri­ven large­ly by the delta vari­ant and de­creased use of pro­tec­tive mea­sures in oth­er parts of the world, Ka­sai said.

“We should not be sur­prised to see more surges in the fu­ture. As long as trans­mis­sion con­tin­ues, the virus can con­tin­ue to mu­tate, as the emer­gence of omi­cron demon­strates, re­mind­ing us of the need to stay vig­i­lant,” Ka­sai said.

He warned es­pe­cial­ly about the like­li­hood of surges due to more gath­er­ings and move­ment of peo­ple dur­ing the hol­i­day sea­son. The north­ern win­ter sea­son will al­so like­ly bring oth­er in­fec­tious res­pi­ra­to­ry dis­eases, such as the flu, along­side COVID-19.

“It is clear that this pan­dem­ic is far from over and I know that peo­ple are wor­ried about omi­cron,” Ka­sai said. “But my mes­sage to­day is that we can adapt the way we man­age this virus to bet­ter cope with the fu­ture surges and re­duce their health, so­cial and eco­nom­ic im­pacts.”