Omicron Covid variant could also cause milder disease, the World Health Organization said.
Data indicates the Omicron Covid variant may more easily reinfect people who had the virus than previous variants, WHO added.
World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters:
Emerging data from South Africa suggests increased risk of reinfection with Omicron … there is also some evidence that Omicron causes milder disease than Delta”.
But he stressed that more data was needed before drawing firm conclusions, and urged countries everywhere to boost their surveillance to help provide a clearer picture of how Omicron is behaving.
WHO emergencies director Michael Ryan said that data indicates the variant is “efficiently transmitting. It is probably more efficiently transmitting even than the Delta variant.”
“But it means the virus is more efficient at transmitting between human beings. And therefore we have to redouble our efforts to break those chains of transmission to protect ourselves to protect others.”
Even if the new variant turns out to be less dangerous than previous variants, if it transmits more rapidly, it could still sicken more people, overburden health systems, “and more people die,” he said.
Scientists believe Omicron could spread more easily than Delta. It could out-compete Delta to become the dominant variant in the UK.
But much is still unknown. It could still take weeks to understand how severe illness from the variant is. And what it means for the effectiveness of vaccines
The World Health Organisation (WHO) warned in a new press statements about the Covid-19 surge in Europe.
