WHO warns that COVID-19: Omicron ‘remains a dangerous virus’

Symptoms of the Omicron variant, less severe than Delta, especially for fully vaccinated people who have taken a booster dose, cause some people to now see it as a mild disease. corn, “More transmission means more hospitalizations, more deaths, more people unable to work, including teachers and health workers, and more risks emerging in another form that is more transmissible and more deadly than Omicron.”WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned on Wednesday.

“Although Omicron causes less severe symptoms than Delta (the dominant variant so far, editor’s note), it remains a dangerous virus, especially for those who have not been vaccinated.”, he insisted during a press conference.

“It is not a mild disease, it is a disease that can be prevented with vaccines.” For his part, Michael Ryan, responsible for emergencies at the World Health Organization, launched. “Now is not the time to give up, this is not the time to let your guard down, this is not the time to say it’s a welcome virus, no virus is a virus. Hey”, Dr. Ryan said.

The alternative, first identified in South Africa at the end of November 2021, has since taken the world by storm, turning curves indicating daily infections in many countries into vertical walls, at levels not seen since the start of the pandemic.

Some hope that due to its unusual rate of transmission, Omicron will replace the more dangerous variants and make it possible to turn the epidemic into a more controllable endemic disease.