New details are emerging about the transmissibility and severity of symptoms of the World Health Organisation’s latest variant of concern, the Omicron strain.
The Chair of the South African Medical Association, Dr Angelique Coetzee, has dismissed the hype surrounding the new variant, saying that while the virus appears to be highly transmissible, most patients she’s seen are presenting with non-severe, asymptotic illness.
Dr Coetzee was the first to raise the alarm about the new strain.
The virus has now spread to 12 countries including Australia, Israel, Germany, Italy and the UK.
It was declared a variant of concern by the WHO on Saturday.
Globally, case numbers of Omicrom now stand at 155.
Despite being officially declared a variant of concern, a former deputy federal health chief for the Australian Government, Dr Nick Coatsworth, says that if it is a milder variant, then it should not be feared.
“There’s a lot we need to find out and I don’t think there’s any strong evidence at the moment.”
This thing is only 72-hours old,” he said.
Dr Coatsworth said the world should know more about Omicron in the next several days, and has called for calm.
“If this is milder than Delta, you may actually want it to spread within your community,” he said.
“You want it to out compete Delta and become the pro-dominant circulating virus … it could be that we want Omicron to spread around the world as quickly as possible.”
Indonesia has today banned flights arriving from 8 African countries including South Africa.
In Australia, authorities have introduced a 72 hour self isolation requirement for all new arrivals into the country.
Source – Nine News, Australia