Tulio de Oliveira, who heads the Network for Genomic Surveillance in South Africa, told the Financial Times the findings were a “wake-up call to control the virus and increase the response to Covid-19 in the world”.

The two cases do not appear to be connected to each other, and neither person is known to have traveled recently.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the famous face of America’s COVID-19 response, has been discussing what is ‘good, bad and ugly’ about the SA variant on Monday.

The latest COVID-19 case is New Zealand’s first since mid-November and has been classified as a strain said to be more transmissible.