Several countries in fear of omicron infection getting out of control:
Omikron has taken the world by storm. South Africa, Great Britain and Denmark are three of the countries where the spread of the omikron variant reaches less than a month after the variant was first discovered.
Well, several countries are in fear that the new variant will continue to spread.
The Netherlands is closing down
On Saturday, the Prime Minister of the Netherlands, Mark Rutte, confirmed that the country will return to closure from Sunday. The background is the spread of the omicron variant in the country. The downsizing is valid until 14 January.
The new restrictions involve all non-essential businesses having to close. Grocery stores and pharmacies must remain open. Restaurants, gyms and cinemas will also have to close in the coming weeks. Schools must be closed until 9 January at the earliest.
– A fifth wave is inevitable, and omikron spreads faster than we feared. We must intervene now, Rutte said.
The Dutch chief of infection control Jaap van Dissel said at the press conference that the omicron variant will pass the delta variant before the end of the year as the dominant variant in the country.
Several countries in fear
The variant has already been discovered in at least 40 American states, and Denmark is considering introducing stricter restrictions in an attempt to limit the funds to new cases of infection.
Britain is trying to vaccinate itself out of the crisis, and will now offer a third dose of the coronary vaccine to all adults in the barn by the end of December.
On Friday, the country had reported 93,045 new cases of the coronavirus, according to government data – the highest daily amount since the pandemic began. On Tuesday, the omikron variant had passed Delta as the dominant corona variant in London, according to the country’s health security agency.
UK Health Minister Sajid Javid on Tuesday and new cases of the omicron variant are doubling every other day in the country. Javid says that the growth in several cases in the UK reached reflects the rapid increase seen in South Africa.
– I envision that omikron will soon be everywhere, says senior researcher in global health at the University of Southampton.
Do not underestimate omikron
Despite the fact that several countries have introduced strict restrictions, the omikron variant has spread rapidly across the globe.
During a press conference on Tuesday, the former director general of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said that 77 countries reported cases of the omirkon variant.
– The reality is probably already in most countries, although it has not been discovered, Ghebreyesus said during the press conference on Tuesday.
The CEO is concerned that people should underestimate omikron, and elaborate that the new variant has spread at a speed that has never been set with previous variant.
– Although it is a milder disease, a large number of cases can again overwhelm unprepared health systems, as the Director General to during the press conference.
Too early to tell
South Africa’s National Institute of Infectious Diseases (NICD) has a more optimistic tone.
In South Africa, researchers say that early analyzes suggest that the omicron variant causes milder symptoms. However, it remains unclear whether the mild symptoms are due to immunity to vaccination or previous infection, writes CNN. South Africa reported the highest number of daily cases on Wednesday.
But despite the fact that the omicron variant can cause milder symptoms, a study by Discovery Health has shown that vaccines provide poorer protection against the new variant.
According to CNN, several researchers have found that dosing the Pfizer vaccine could provide 33 percent protection against infection overall, but 70 percent effective in preventing serious complications that require hospitalization.
Others are not as confident. Medical chief in England, Chris Whitty, warns that the daily infection rates that have been set recently in the UK, what that infection will continue to increase drastically.
Whitty says more secure data on the table will be needed before researchers can begin assessing the severity of the omicron variant.