WHO: Omicron spreads faster and weakens jabs

WASHINGTON/JOHANNESBURG－The Omicron coronavirus variant is more transmissible than the Delta strain and reduces vaccine efficacy but causes less severe symptoms according to early data, the World Health Organization said on Sunday.

The Delta variant, first identified in India earlier this year, is responsible for most of the world's coronavirus infections.

The WHO said Omicron had spread to 63 countries by Thursday. Faster transmission was noted in South Africa, where Delta is less prevalent, and in Britain, where Delta is the dominant strain.

But it stressed that a lack of data meant it could not say if Omicron's rate of transmission was because it was less prone to immune responses, higher transmissibility or a combination of both.

Early evidence suggests Omicron causes "a reduction in vaccine efficacy against infection and transmission", the health agency said in a technical brief.

Omicron infections have so far caused mild illness or asymptomatic cases, but the WHO said the data was insufficient to establish the variant's clinical severity.

In South Africa, where the first Omicron cases were identified, President Cyril Ramaphosa tested positive for COVID-19 on Sunday and is receiving treatment for mild symptoms, his office said in a statement.

The president, who is fully vaccinated, started feeling unwell after leaving the state memorial service in honor of former president FW de Klerk in Cape Town earlier on Sunday. The president is in good spirits but is being monitored by the Military Health Service of the South African National Defence Force.

The statement quoted Ramaphosa as saying that his own infection served as a warning to all citizens of the importance of getting vaccinated and remaining vigilant against exposure.

In the United States, where the country crossed 50 million coronavirus cases on Sunday, the dominant Delta variant and the recently discovered Omicron variant cause a double concern for residents.

After about two months of declining infections, the US has reported daily increases for the past two weeks, driven by the more easily transmitted Delta variant.

Hospitalization rates

The number of hospitalized patients is rising as well, up 20 percent since the Thanksgiving holiday at the end of November.

Over the past month, deaths have increased by 4.6 percent, and the country's death toll from COVID-19 has surpassed 800,000.

Nearly half of US states have detected cases of the Omicron variant, but the Delta variant still accounts for 99 percent of current cases, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky has said.

For Omicron to be a significant problem, it will need to change that balance to become dominant. "If we suddenly start to see 10 percent of new infections being Omicron, and then it goes up the next week to 20 percent, that would tell us that we're in a replacement wave such as we saw when Delta replaced Alpha," said John Moore, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Weill Cornell Medical College.

Around 14 percent of people in the United States have now received a booster shot.

In the United Kingdom, the government on Sunday raised its COVID-19 alert level due to the "rapid increase" in cases of the Omicron variant, as the government announced new measures to control its spread.

In response to the rising cases in the UK, Israel on Sunday moved to ban travel for Britain in a bid to prevent the spread of the variant. The ban will take effect on Thursday.

Agencies - Xinhua