The Omicron variant of Covid-19 has now been reported in 57 countries and continues to spread rapidly in South Africa, the World Health Organization (WHO) says, according to The Guardian.
But the latest epidemiological report from WHO says given the Delta variant remains dominant, particularly in Europe and the U.S., it is still too early to draw any conclusions about the global impact of Omicron.
The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control has predicted that the Omicron variant could become the dominant variant in Europe within months.
For now, though, the Delta variant continues to dominate cases, and more data is needed to determine Omicron’s infectiousness and severity, WHO says.
“While there seems to be evidence that the Omicron variant may have a growth advantage over other circulating variants, it is unknown whether this will translate into increased transmissibility,” the WHO report said.
Of 899,935 Covid-19 test samples sequenced and uploaded to the global Covid database in the last 60 days, 897,886 (99.8%) were confirmed to be Delta, while 713 (0.1%) were Omicron.
The WHO report said South Africa reported 62,021 cases of the variant between 29 November and 5 December – an 111% rise from the previous week.
The country also had an 82% increase in hospital admissions due to Covid-19 during the week to 4 December – 912 admissions compared with 502 the week prior. But it is not yet known how many of these cases were due to Omicron.
Omicron seems to be spreading rapidly in South Africa despite high rates of past infection with Covid. Estimates suggest between 60% and 80% of the population have previously been infected. Vaccination rates are low, at about 35%.
Data is still too limited to know with certainty whether Omicron changes the severity of the illness. As of 6 December, all 212 confirmed Omicron cases across 18 European Union countries were classed as asymptomatic or mild.
But WHO said “even if the severity is equal or potentially even lower than for Delta variant, it is expected that hospitalisations will increase if more people become infected”.
