WTO postpones in-person ministerial conference in Geneva amid Omicron outbreak

Washington, Nov 27: The World Trade Organization postponed its in-person ministerial conference in Geneva as Switzerland tightened travel restrictions over new South Africa covid variant, which poses greater risks than delta, which is the world’s most prevalent variant and has fuelled relentless waves of infection on every continent.

WTO members took the decision at an emergency meeting held on Friday night to discuss possible alternative arrangements for their ministerial conference. The conference will be convened as soon as conditions allow, General Council Chair Dacio Castillo said in a statement.

“My priority is the health and safety of all MC12 participants — ministers, delegates and civil society,” Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala told Rueters. “It is better to err on the side of caution.” Nearly two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, the world has raced to contain a new coronavirus variant potentially more dangerous than the one that has fuelled relentless waves of infection on nearly every continent. A World Health Organization panel named the variant omicron and classified it as a highly transmissible virus of concern, the same category that includes the predominant delta variant, which is still a scourge driving higher cases of sickness and death in Europe and parts of the United States. In response to the variant’s discovery in southern Africa, the United States, Canada, Russia and a host of other countries joined the European Union in restricting travel for visitors from that region, where the variant brought on a fresh surge of infections.
Medical experts, including the WHO, warned against any overreaction before the variant was thoroughly studied. But a jittery world feared the worst after the tenacious virus triggered a pandemic that has killed more than five million people around the globe.