ANTARCTICA MIGHT BE THE ONLY PLACE OMICRON HAS NOT YET REACHED.

By Chandrayee Roy Choudhury, Canada

The Omicron variant has been detected in nearly every corner of the globe, but it may not have reached Antarctica yet.

According to data from the Global Initiative on Sharing Avian Influenza Data (GISAID), which provides open-source genomic information on the influenza virus and COVID-19, 115 countries have shared genome sequences of the Omicron variant “with unprecedented speed".

The data does not include Antarctica, which is home to between 1,000 and 4,000 people depending on the time of year.

Antarctica -- coincidentally home to the Omicron Islands -- had nine positive COVID-19 cases in December at the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica research station, stemming from a Dec. 9 flight from Cape Town, South Africa.

It is unclear whether these nine cases were the Omicron variant.

Of the 115 countries with confirmed cases submitted to the GISAID, the United Kingdom has the most with 124,435 cases, followed by the United States with 84,409.