WHO states they not clear whether the Omicron COVID-19 variant is more transmissible or whether it causes a more virulent disease.
It is not yet clear whether the Omicron COVID-19 variant is more infectious or whether it causes more severe disease compared to other variants including Delta, the World Health Organization (WHO) said.
While the number of people testing positive has risen in South Africa where this variant was started, it is unclear whether Omicron causes more critical disease, but preliminary data indicates that there are increasing rates of hospitalization in South Africa, which however may be due to increasing overall numbers of people becoming infected.
WHO established that there is currently no information to suggest that symptoms associated with Omicron are different from those from other variants, as understanding the level of severity of the Omicron variant will take days to several weeks. All variants of COVID-19, including the Delta variant that is currently dominant worldwide, can cause severe disease or death, in particular for the most vulnerable people, and thus prevention is always key.
Information presently is limited and more information on this will become available in the coming days and weeks. It added that current PCR tests continue to detect Omicron, while further studies are still going on to understand how the Omicron variant will impact available vaccines and treatments to COVID-19.
WHO listed on Friday the latest variant B.1.1.529 of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, now with the name Omicron, as a “Variant of Concern” (VOC). According to WHO’s definition, a VOC, with a degree of global public health significance, demonstrates one or more mutational changes, such as an increase in infection or detrimental change in COVID-19 epidemiology, increase in virulence or change in clinical disease presentation, and decline in the effectiveness of public health and social measures or available diagnostics, vaccines, therapeutics.
WHO has since asked countries to intensify surveillance and sequencing on circulating SARS-CoV-2 variants, submit complete genome sequences and metadata to a publicly available database, and report initial VOC cases or clusters to WHO. It has also recommended field investigations and laboratory assessments to better understand the inherent impacts of the VOC on COVID-19 epidemiology, the effectiveness of public health and social measures, and antibody neutralization.
The central government has released revised travel guidelines to check the spread of the Omicron variant of coronavirus. It has also released a list of ‘at risk’ countries, which Omicron cases have been detected.