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Mexico will not close its borders due to Omicron reports health official

Mexico City, Mexico — Mexico’s Undersecretary of Health says Mexico will not be closing its border due to the new covid variant, Omicron. On Sunday, Hugo López-Gatell said that to date, the new Omicron variant of covid-19 has not been shown to be more virulent or to evade the immune response induced by vaccines.

On social media, the undersecretary said that some data suggests that the new covid variant has higher transmissibility than the previous ones.

“Omicron is the most recent SARS-CoV-2 variant of concern. Some data suggest that it has a higher transmissibility than previous ones. It has not been shown to be more virulent or to evade the immune response induced by vaccines,” he wrote.

The federal official reiterated his position regarding travel restrictions or border closures, saying they are not very useful measures and affect the economy and the well-being of the people.

López-Gatell said that information being disseminated on the risks of the new variant is disproportionate in relation to what existing scientific evidence shows.

“Travel restrictions or border closures are not very useful measures. They affect the economy and well-being of the people. The information disseminated on the risks of the new variant is disproportionate to what the existing scientific evidence shows,” said López-Gatell.

On Saturday, Oliva López, Secretary of Health of Mexico City, said that there were no detected cases of Omicore in Mexico City or any other part of the country.

“We have not documented this variant in the city or in the country until now, but it is being monitored. Genomic surveillance is carried out to detect not only this, but any variant of concern,” said Arellano López earlier.

Arellano López noted that according to the genomic surveillance data of the last eight weeks, the variant that dominates the covid cases in Mexico City continues to be Delta.