Omicron Variant Has Not Yet Been Linked To Any Deaths- WHO

Omicron Variant Has Not Yet Been Linked To Any Deaths- WHO

Touchaheart Nigeria reports that according to the World Health Organization, no deaths have been reported as a result of the new Omicron Variant form of Covid-19.

As governments throughout the world adopt travel restrictions to stop the spread of the variation of concern (VOC), the WHO stated it was gathering evidence.

Despite the fact that an increasing number of nations are reporting infections with the new variety, the UN health agency has yet to receive any reports of deaths.

“I have not seen reports of Omicron-related deaths yet,” WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier told reporters in Geneva.

“We’re collecting all the evidence and we will find much more evidence as we go along.

“The more countries… keep testing people, and looking specifically into the Omicron variant, we will also find more cases, more information, and, hopefully not, but also possibly deaths.”

Lindmeier also urged people to be mindful of the Delta variant, which accounts for 99.8 percent of sequences uploaded to the GISAID global science initiative with specimens collected in the last 60 days.

“Omicron may be on the rise, and we may come to a point where it takes over to be the dominant variant, but at this point, the very dominant variant remains Delta,” he stressed.

Lindmeier added:

“The restrictions that were put into place in many countries just two weeks ago — economical closures again, lockdowns in some areas, closures of Christmas markets in parts of Europe — this was done before Omicron because of a rise of Delta cases. Let’s not lose sight 

The WHO has said it will take several weeks to get a full picture of the transmissibility and disease severity of Omicron and to assess how vaccines, work against the new variant.

“What we need to do is we need to take all these observations, assessments and tests and get this information together and then have the experts look at it, carefully weigh it and come up with the assessment. That will still take some time,” said Lindmeier.

“Preliminary data show that there is higher transmissibility. But that’s basically all we have so far.”