The Omicron variant of Covid-19 is quickly overtaking the Delta variant around the world, a senior WHO official has warned, with the WHO warning there is “increasing evidence” that Omicron exhibits less disease severity than other variants.
It could take some time for Omicron to overtake Delta in some countries, because it depends on the level of circulation of the Delta variant in those countries, Infectious Disease Epidemiologist and Covid-19 Technical Lead at the World Health Organisation (WHO) Maria Van Kerkhove said on Tuesday.
“Omicron has been detected in all countries where we have good sequencing and it’s likely to be in all countries around the world. It is quickly, in terms of its circulation, overtaking Delta. And so Omicron is becoming the dominant variant that is being detected,” Kerkhove said during a virtual questions and answers session.
She further cautioned that even though there is some information that Omicron causes less severe disease than Delta, “it’s not a mild disease” because “people are still being hospitalized for Omicron.”
The Covid-19 Weekly Epidemiological Update, released by the WHO, said that over 15 million new Covid-19 cases were reported globally in the week of January 3-9, a 55 per cent increase as compared to the previous week when about 9.5 million cases were reported.
Over 43,000 new deaths were reported in the past week. As of 9 January, over 304 million confirmed Covid-19 cases and over 5.4 million deaths have been reported.
The highest numbers of new cases were reported from the US (4,610,359 new cases; a 73 per cent increase), France (1,597,203 new cases; a 46 per cent increase), the UK (1,217,258 new cases; a 10 per cent increase), Italy (1,014,358 new cases; a 57 per cent increase) and India (638,872 new cases; a 524 per cent increase), the update said.
Kerkhove said the 15 million cases reported in the last seven days are a “record high in this pandemic” and are an “underestimate” given the challenges in surveillance around the world and COVID-19 self-tests at home that are not registered.
The WHO update said that the Omicron variant has a substantial growth advantage and is rapidly replacing other variants.
“This variant has been shown to have a shorter doubling time as compared to previous variants, with transmission occurring even amongst those vaccinated or with a history of prior SARS-CoV-2 infection; there is increasing evidence that this variant is able to evade immunity,” the update said.
It said that in terms of disease severity, there is growing evidence that the Omicron variant is less severe as compared to other variants.
