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"Omicron's very emergence is another reminder that although many of us might think we are done with COVID-19, it's not done with us."

That was the head of the World Health Organization.

After a frantic weekend of headlines about the new COVID Omicron variant, global governments are racing to assess the risk of this new strain which has already been detected in many countries. Scientists say it could take weeks, and some are preparing for the worst.

Israel and Japan, for example, have closed down their borders to foreigners. Other countries are reimposing travel and social distancing measures.

But as of Monday (November 29) afternoon there have been no known deaths directly linked to Omicron.

And in South Africa - part of the region where Omicron was first detected - government advisers including a Columbia University disease expert are saying vaccines should still be a major safeguard against it.

This was Professor Salim Abdool, with Columbia and South Africa's University of Kwazulu-Natal, with the government on Monday:

"Are current treatments still effective? Yes, smiley face, because we know that most of the things we use in our standard treatment protocols should be effective."

"But based on what we know and based on how the other variants of concern have reacted to vaccine immunity, we can expect that we will still see high effectiveness for hospitalization and severe disease, and that protection of the vaccines is likely to remain strong. Now, I don't know this definitively. The studies are being done, but based on what we know, we can expect that this is the likely scenario."

Vaccine makers including Moderna, Johnson and Johnson, and Pfizer's partner BioNTech have said they're already working on new vaccines specifically targeted to Omicron, in case the current crop proves ineffective.