Covid-19: Omicron “remains a dangerous virus”, warns the WHO – LCI

The symptoms of the Omicron variant, less severe than Delta, especially for people who have been fully vaccinated and who have had a booster dose, make some people now see it as a mild illness. Corn, “more transmission means more hospitalizations, more deaths, more people who cannot work, including teachers and health workers, and more risk that another variant emerges which will be even more transmissible and more lethal than Omicron “, warned the boss of the World Health Organization Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Wednesday.

“Although Omicron causes less severe symptoms than Delta (the hitherto dominant variant, Editor’s note), it remains a dangerous virus, especially for those who are not 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, launched Michael Ryan, the person in charge of emergency situations at the WHO. “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 that it is a virus that is welcome, no virus is the welcome”, Dr Ryan said.

The variant, which was first identified in southern Africa at the end of November 2021, has since taken the world by storm, turning the curves marking daily infections in many countries into vertical walls, at levels not seen since the beginning. of the pandemic.

The hope of some is that due to its extraordinary rate of transmission Omicron will replace the more dangerous variants and make it possible to turn the pandemic into an endemic disease that is more easily manageable.