Geneva: The overall risk associated with a new variant that concern omicron remains “very high”, said the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday because the world continued to witness the surge in the case of Covid-19 global.
Weekly epidemiological updates by who revealed that the week of December 20-26 saw the number of global Covid-19 cases only increased 11 percent compared to the previous week.
“Consistent evidence shows that Omicron has a growth advantage compared to Delta with a double time of 2-3 days and a quick increase in the incidence of cases seen in a number of countries, including where the variant has become the dominant SARS-2 variant,” whose update said while Citing English and US examples.
However, the decline in cases has now been observed in South Africa, he added.
WHO notes that rapid growth rates are likely to be a combination of both immune avoidance and increased intrinsic transmission from the omicron variant.
“Preliminary data from the UK, South Africa and Denmark suggested there was a risk reduction in hospitalization for omicron compared to the Delta variant,” said the weekly update but added that further data was needed to understand the clinical marker of severity including the use of oxygen, mechanical ventilation and death, and how The severity can be affected by vaccination.
Omicron was first detected in South Africa last month.
South African health authority, but also a health professional from other countries, said the omicron variant is far more contagious but produces mild cases.