WHO urges long-haul flights passengers to wear masks amid rapid spread of COVID-19 variant

As latest Omicron subvariant of COVID-19 spres across countries, World Health Organisation (WHO) officials, in a press briefing on Wednesday, urged passengers on long-haul flights to wear masks. "Passengers should be vised to wear masks in high-risk settings such as long-haul flights," said WHO's senior emergency officer for Europe, Carine Smallwood, ding: "this should be a recommendation issued to passengers arriving from anywhere where re is widespre COVID-19 transmission".

In Europe, XBB.1.5 subvariant was detected in small but growing numbers, WHO/Europe officials said at a press briefing. XBB.1.5 - most transmissible Omicron subvariant detected so far - accounted for 27.6% of COVID-19 cases in United States for week ended January 7, health officials have said. It was unclear if XBB.1.5 would cause its own wave of global infections. Current vaccines continue to protect against severe symptoms, hospitalisation and death, as per experts.

Regardless of vax status, opting for a more "protective" disposable mask like a N95 mask, KN95 mask or KF94 mask could help prevent you from getting COVID while traveling. A US federal court overturned mask mandate in April 2022 with flyers longer required to wear masks. 

Fresh cases in US caused by new variant

A report has claimed that omicron subvariant XBB.1.5 is responsible for infecting nearly 41 percent of people across United States. According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report, XBB.1.5 omicron subvariant has appeared to be most dominant strain and has pushed out or variants, including BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 subvariants, from ir previous positions as most detected coronavirus mutations.

tably, report stated that XBB subvariant, from which XBB.15 descends, is a combination of two subvariants that come from BA.2 omicron subvariant. According to Hill, highly infectious virus carries genetic data from two versions of COVID-19 that originated from BA.2 subvariant. It is important to te that XBB.1.5 is responsible for vast majority of coronavirus cases in rast, accounting for 75% of cases in New England and New York tri-state area.

Three years since first COVID-19 death was reported

On January 11 in 2020, health authorities in central Chinese city of Wuhan reported first death from what h been identified as a new of coronavirus.  patient was a 61-year-old man who’d been a frequent customer at a food market linked to majority of cases re.