The world health organisation (WHO) has stated that Omicron is spreading faster than the other COVID-19 variants.
Speaking on the matter, Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh, Regional Director of WHO for South-East Asia region said that one should not dismiss Omicron as ‘mild’.
“Based on the current limited evidence, Omicron appears to be spreading faster at a rate not seen with any other previous variant,” Dr Singh said in an interview to news agency ANI.
She added: “The overall threat posed by Omicron largely depends on three key questions: (1) how transmissible the variant is; (2) how well vaccines and prior SARS-CoV-2 infection protect against infection, transmission, clinical disease and death; and (3) how virulent the variant is as compared to other variants.”
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The Omicron variant of coronavirus infects and multiplies 70 times faster than Delta and the original COVID-19 strain, but the severity of illness is likely to be much lower, according to a study.
Meanwhile, India’s Omicron tally has risen to 87 on Thursday.
According to reports, a fully vaccinated woman with no travel history tested positive for Omicron in Gujarat’s Mehsana district.