Sikhulile Moyo speaks up about the identification of the new variant, travel bans, what southern Africa needs from the rest of the world and what may come next.

When the Botswanan scientists saw the sequences, they were stunned.

Four international travelers had tested positive for COVID-19 on Nov. 11, four days after entering the country. But when the cases were genetically sequenced, where the genetic code of the virus is analyzed to look for worrying changes, the scientists discovered a variant they had never encountered before.

And soon, they alerted the world to what would become known as the omicron variant. Read more at NPR.