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Noting that Omicron is dangerous, the World health organization (WHO) said “we are watching this virus evolve in real-time". Further pointing out that at this point transmission or the spread of COVID cannot be stopped completely, it added that it is, however, extremely essential to drive down the level of transmission to ensure that there are lesser numbers of hospitalisation, deaths, and cases long COVID. From symptoms to subvariants, UN health agency explains all that you need to know about Omicron
On Omicron and its sub-lineages, WHO's Maria Van Kerkhove pointed out, there are four sub-lineages of Omicron that the agency is tracking - BA.1, the BA.1.1, the BA.2, the BA.3. Currently, WHO is also tracking what is the proportion of these sub-variants that are circulating across the world.
“Now, we already know that Omicron has a growth advantage. It is more transmissible compared to other Variants of Concern. It also has properties of immune escape."
“But, we know some of the sub-lineages, BA.2, has a growth advantage even over BA.1, which means that as this virus continues to circulate, we will now see an increase in BA.2 with this increased growth advantage over BA.1."
What is important for you to know is that this virus continues to be dangerous, WHO official asserts.
Our understanding of Omicron is that people who are infected with Omicron can have a range of symptoms. They can have no symptoms at all and be completely asymptomatic or they can develop severe disease and people are also dying from Omicron, Van Kerkhove explained
“On average, we know that there is lesser risk of needing hospitalisation if you are infected with Omicron compared to Delta, but that does not mean that it is a mild disease."
Van Kerkhove explained that Omicron has been circulating for a short amount of time. It takes some time for people to be infected, to go through the full disease and then (around 90 days after symptoms resolve), we get to know whether they are suffering from long COVID.
“There really isn’t any indication to suggest that we would see a difference in the percentage of people that may suffer from long COVID but we don’t have a full understanding of long COVID yet."
Further pointing out that at this point transmission or the spread of COVID cannot be stopped completely she added, “But we need to drive transmission down because if we don’t, we will not only see more cases, more hospitalisations, more deaths, we will see more people suffering from post-COVID condition, long COVID, and we will see more opportunities for variants to emerge."
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