Meeting of G7 ministers facing the new Omicron variant

G7 health ministers are meeting urgently in London on Monday amid concern over the new Omicron variant of the coronavirus, which continues to spread across the world despite border closures. The Ministers of Health of France, the United States, Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom meet "to discuss the evolution of the situation on Omicron", during an “emergency meeting”, announced London, at the head of the rotating presidency of the G7. This decision comes as cases linked to the new strain have been detected across the G7 countries, from Canada to Italy, including Great Britain and Germany. In France, the detection of the Omicron variant is "most likely a matter of hours", estimated Sunday the Minister of Health Olivier Véran. While the pandemic has already claimed more than five million lives worldwide since the end of 2019, the arrival of the Omicron variant has been deemed "worrying" by the World Health Organization (WHO).

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