Most Omicron cases are ‘mild’ and there is no evidence the new variant has any impact on vaccine effectiveness against serious illness, a World Health Organization official claimed today.
A spokesperson for the global health agency said early data suggests the mutant strain is better at infecting people than Delta, even the fully vaccinated.
But there is no signal that existing vaccines will be any less effective at preventing hospitalisations and deaths, the official, speaking anonymously, told Reuters.
It is unclear what evidence the WHO is referring to, but the comment marks the first official hint that the Omicron super-strain may not wreak as much global havoc as initially feared.
But despite fears about Omicron, South Africa is still recording far fewer overall Covid cases per population size than both the UK and US.
Figures from the Oxford University research platform Our World in Data shows South Africa has 46 cases per million people compared to 628 in the UK and 246 in the US. Cases are rising sharply in South Africa but are starting at a low base.
So far, only 172 Omicron cases have been confirmed in South Africa and doctors there maintain that patients with the new variant are presenting with milder symptoms than previous strains — even though daily cases have soared 400 per cent in a week to 4,373 yesterday.
Botswana — the country where Omicron is believed to have emerged — today revealed that 16 out of 19 of its confirmed cases were asymptomatic.
But Covid hospitalisations are starting to rise in the South African epicentre of Gauteng province, which is raising questions about how mild the variant truly is.
The province recorded 580 hospitalisations this week, in a jump of 330 per cent from 135 hospital admissions two week ago, according to official Government data.
But just a quarter of South Africans have had two Covid vaccine doses, which makes interpreting the data challenging. In the city of Tshwane in northern Gauteng, 87 per cent of hospital admissions this week were among the unvaccinated.
For comparison, 70 per cent of people in the UK are double-jabbed and the figure is as high as 80 per cent in some European nations.
Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, an epidemiologist at the WHO, later told a press conference that ‘surveillance bias’ could be underestimating the severity of Omicron, because young people have been the main spreaders of the strain.
Last night, Israeli officials claimed that a booster dose of Pfizer’s vaccine provides up to 90 per cent protection against severe illness from Omicron.
But experts warn it will be at least two weeks until they have a better understanding of what impact the variant could have.
WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus today confirmed Omicron has been reported in 23 countries, warning every country should take the strain ‘very seriously’.
And SAGE, No10’s scientific advisors, warned Britain should brace for a ‘potentially very significant wave with associated hospitalisations’ this winter if the worst estimates about Omicron turn out to be true.
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