Today is Monday, November 29th, and you're listening to the morning announcements presented

by Betcha's media.

I'm Sammy Sage, and this episode is sponsored by Uncommon Goods.

If you're on a mission to be the best gift giver ever this year, Uncommon Goods makes

it easy to find remarkable and truly original gifts for everyone.

As I'm sure you've heard by now, we officially have a new variant in town.

The World Health Organization classified the new variant as a variant of concern and

named it a micron.

It was originally discovered and sequenced in South Africa, and cases have been identified

in multiple countries including Italy, Denmark, Germany, Britain, Belgium, and Australia.

This immediately led to a number of travel bans being enacted in the United States, as

well as Morocco, Israel, South Korea, and the EU, who have all limited travel from the

southern African continent.

In New York, Governor Kathy Hocal has already declared a state of emergency, which enables

the state to take certain measures quickly amongst a changing situation when the variant

is found.

For example, the state's health department will now be allowed to protect hospital capacity

by limiting non-essential care until at least January 15th.

The extent of the threat of a micron is still being explored by scientists so maybe don't

panic yet, but the consensus seems to be that vaccines will still be effective against

it.

Then while the variant still hasn't been found in the US officially yet, I would bet my

...