Omicron not more severe than Delta -World Health Organisation
SWITZERLAND, UN, SPAIN, FRANCE: Amid mounting global concerns over Omicron, the new variant of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) said to be more transmissible and capable of undergoing frequent mutations, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has laid to rest apprehensions about the efficacy of existing vaccines against the new strain. A top WHO official said on Tuesday that there is no reason to assume that Omicron is more severe than the variants which came before, or that existing vaccines will fail against it.
The World Health Organisation’s Emergencies Director Michael Ryan said in an interview that there currently is no indication to suggest that Omicron, although highly infectious, causes a more severe disease than previous COVID-19 variants such as Delta. The existing vaccines should protect people who contract Omicron against the worst outcomes of the disease, he said.
“We have highly effective vaccines that have proved effective against all the variants so far, in terms of severe disease and hospitalisation, and there’s no reason to expect that it wouldn’t be so [for Omicron],” the WHO official was quoted as saying. Ryan, however, said that more research was needed into studying the Omicron variant to appropriately take on board exactly how threatening it is poised to be.
A similar assurance was echoed on Tuesday by US infectious diseases expert Anthony Fauci, who said that Omicron is certainly not worse than the previous strains, including Delta.
Meanwhile, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was exposed to the coronavirus Tuesday by a UN official who already had COVID-19 and is isolating for the next few days, diplomatic sources said. Guterres, 72, has canceled his upcoming in-person engagements, sources said.
The UN Chief was due to be the guest of honour of the UN Press Association at its annual gala in Manhattan on Wednesday. The Secretary-General’s Spokesman Stephane Dujarric declined to comment immediately on Guterres’s condition.
Dujarric indicated a few days ago that Guterres had recently received his third dose of the anti-coronavirus vaccine, after having hesitated for a long time about the advisability of receiving booster shots while millions of people throughout the world have yet to receive their first jab.
Meanwhile, 70 nurses and doctors working in the Intensive Care Unit at a Spanish hospital have tested positive for COVID-19 after attending a Christmas party, health authorities said on Monday. Health authorities said they were investigating the source of the infection but added all 68 attended a Christmas party on December 1 at which 173 people were present.
Meanwhile, Nightclubs in France will be ordered to close for four weeks from this weekend to counter a COVID surge that has put hospitals under severe strain, the prime minister said Monday.
Nightclub owners reacted furiously to the new shutdown, having already been closed for most of last winter and spring before reopening in July.
– THE NEW INDIAN EXPRESS, THE HINDUSTAN TIMES, FRANCE 24