Coronavirus: Omicron risk still ‘very high’, WHO says, as evidence mounts of it causing milder symptoms

Omicron is behind rapid virus spikes in several countries, including those where it has already overtaken the previously-dominant Delta variant, the WHO said

Early studies have shown Omicron to be about twice as transmissible as Delta, but the data also suggests milder symptoms and a reduced risk of hospitalisation

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Doctors attend to a Covid-19 patient at a hospital’s intensive care unit in the US state of California on December 22. Photo: Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times/TNS

Published: 10:30am, 29 Dec 2021Updated: 10:35am, 29 Dec 2021

The risk posed by the Omicron variant is still “very high”, the World Health Organization said on Wednesday, after Covid-19 case numbers shot up by 11 per cent globally last week – though lower rates of hospitalisation associated with the highly transmissible variant add to mounting evidence that it causes milder symptoms than other strains.

Omicron is behind rapid virus spikes in several countries, including those where it has already overtaken the previously-dominant Delta variant, the WHO said in its Covid-19 weekly epidemiological update.

“The overall risk related to the new variant of concern Omicron remains very high,” the UN health agency said.

“Consistent evidence shows that the Omicron variant has a growth advantage over the Delta variant with a doubling time of two to three days and rapid increases in the incidence of cases is seen in a number of countries,” including Britain and the United States, where it has become the dominant variant.

“The rapid growth rate is likely to be a combination of both immune evasion and intrinsic increased transmissibility of the Omicron variant,” the WHO said.

In the US, the seven-day average of new cases hit 206,577 on Sunday, roughly 18 per cent lower than the all-time high recorded on January 11, according to data from the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. Meanwhile, hospitalisations rose to a seven-day average of 8,964, only half their earlier peak recorded in January.

Early studies have shown Omicron to be about twice as transmissible as Delta. Because the new variant spreads so easily, the US is likely to see continued increases in hospitalisation and deaths, though not as severe as during the Delta wave that hit earlier this year, said Albert Ko, chair of the department of epidemiology and microbial diseases at the Yale School of Public Health.