365 Omikron cases have already been confirmed in Austria. While 49 cases were still detected in calendar week 49 from December 6th to 12th, there were already 278 cases in the past week, also from December 12th to 19th. This corresponds to an increase of 467 percent.

Ten Omikron cases in Salzburg

Most cases of B.1.1.529 are so far with 238 in Vienna. However, the federal capital is the only one where all positive PCR samples are pre-tested for virus variants. So far there have been 41 confirmed Omikron cases in Upper Austria, 29 in Lower Austria, 28 in Tyrol and ten in Salzburg. So far there have been eight known Omikron infected people in Burgenland, five in Vorarlberg, four in Styria and only two in Carinthia.

Variant detected for the first time in November

Omikron was confirmed for the first time in Austria in calendar week 47 from November 22nd to 28th. At that time there were six infected people who were demonstrably infected with B.1.1.529.

The geneticist Ulrich Elling recently criticized the fact that far too little is being sequenced in Austria. The information available is too sketchy to be able to estimate the real number of unreported cases in micron. For many regions in Austria you only know “that we know nothing,” said the researcher on Tuesday.

(Source: APA)