Spread of Omicron could lead to a new, more dangerous variant, warns WHO official
Senior Emergencies Officer Catherine Smallwood said that the full impact of a surge in cases due to Omicron was not yet clear.
The spread of the Omicron variant of coronavirus could result in the emergence of a new and more dangerous version of the disease, a World Health Organization official warned in an interview with AFP on Tuesday.
“The more Omicron spreads, the more it transmits and the more it replicates, the more likely it is to throw out a new variant,” WHO Senior Emergencies Officer Catherine Smallwood said. “Omicron is lethal, it can cause death... Maybe a little bit less than Delta, but who is to say what the next variant might throw out?”
Scientists and health experts have repeatedly stressed that even as initial studies suggest that the Omicron variant results in milder infections, it could still be a concern for medical infrastructure across the world due to the strain’s ability to transmit faster.
On Tuesday, Smallwood noted that the new variant has led to more than 50 lakh new cases globally in the last week of 2021.
“We are in a very dangerous phase, we are seeing infection rates rise very significantly in Western Europe, and the full impact of that is not yet clear,” she said.
In a tweet on Tuesday, Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s technical lead for Covid-19 also sounded a word of caution and advised people not to compare Omicron infections with common cold.
Omicron is NOT the common cold.
— Maria Van Kerkhove (@mvankerkhove) January 4, 2022
While some reports show a reduced risk of hospitalisation of Omicron compared to Delta, there are still far too many people infected, in hospital sick & dying from Omicron (& Delta).
We can prevent infections, save lives now. #VaccinEquity @WHO
Global cases
Meanwhile, daily coronavirus cases continued to surge across the globe with several countries logging records for highest single-day rise in infections.
The United States on Monday reported 10,80,211 new cases becoming the first country to record more than 10 lakh infections in a day, according to Bloomberg. In US, the daily caseloads are typically higher on Mondays because of delays in tallying of cases over the weekend. Nonetheless, the number was still double the figure recorded on previous Monday.
On Tuesday, the country’s Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said that 95% of the new cases detected last week were of the Omicron variant, PTI reported.
In the United Kingdom, daily cases surpassed the two lakh-mark for the first time on Tuesday, AFP reported. However, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that he intended to “ride out” the surge in Covid-19 cases without imposing further restrictions, the BBC reported.
The Omicron variant swept across other parts of Europe too, as France registered 271,686 new cases on Tuesday. This was the fourth consecutive day that France recorded more than two lakh cases, according to France24.
With 64,758 new cases on Wednesday, Australia also logged record high infections for the third consecutive day, according to Reuters.