United States health officials said that while the omicron variant of the coronavirus is rapidly spreading throughout the country, early indications suggest it may be less dangerous than Delta, which continues to drive a surge of hospitalisations.
US President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser, Dr Anthony Fauci, said on Sunday that scientists need more information before drawing conclusions about Omicron’s severity.
According to him and other experts, reports from South Africa — where the Omicron variant was first reported as a result of their scientists and medical health system’s efficient and swift detection of the heavily mutated strain — suggest that hospitalisation rates have not increased alarmingly even though it is inching closer to becoming the dominant strain.
“Thus far, it does not look like there’s a great degree of severity to it. But globally, we really have to be careful before we make any determinations that it is less severe or it really doesn’t cause any severe illness, comparable to delta,” Faunci said.
Meanwhile, India added two countries — Ghana and Tanzania — to the list of “at risk” places. The passengers from here will have to follow additional Covid-19 testing and quarantine measures, which differs from state to state. The complete list of the countries as of now are: Countries in Europe, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Africa, China, Ghana, Mauritius, New Zealand, Brazil, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Tanzania and Israel.
So far, India has a total of 23 cases of the Omicron variant.
