+ 17 172 new Covid-19 infected in 24h – Cidade Hoje
The Omicron variant of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, which causes covid-19 disease, reached an estimated 75% on Monday, according to a report by the National Institute of Health Doctor Ricardo Jorge (INSA), released today.
The report on the genetic diversity of SARS-CoV-2 in Portugal indicates that there was an “exponential growth” of probable cases of the Omicron variant, while there was a reduction in the circulation of the Delta variant.
The data indicate that an Ómicron variant is dominant in Portugal (more than 50% of cases) and that, according to INSA, this “sudden increase in community circulation has a community parallel with the scenario observed in other countries such as, for example, Denmark and the United Kingdom”.
The report, carried out by the Bioinformatics Nucleus of the Department of Infectious Diseases at INSA, stated that 24,198 sequences of the genome of the new coronavirus, prepared from those collected in more than 100 laboratories, hospitals and institutions, referring to 303 have been analyzed to date. councils of Portugal.
An average of 533 sequences per week have been analyzed since the beginning of June 2021, randomly collected in laboratories distributed throughout the 18 districts of mainland Portugal and the Autonomous Regions of the Azores and Madeira, covering an average of 129 municipalities per week.
In week 50, from December 13th to 19th, the Omicron worry variant registered a provisional relative frequency of 10.1% (data calculated up to December 14th).
“According to the characteristics based on the real-time monitoring strategy of the ‘failure’ in the detection of the S gene, since December 6th there has been an exponential growth in the proportion of probable cases of the Omicron variant, estimating an estimate of 75% on the 27th of December”, says the INSA in the report.
As for the Delta variant, the report indicates that since a week 47 (November 22 to 28) its relative frequency has been decreasing, “as a result of the abrupt increase in circulation of the Ómicron variant, still standing out as AY.4.2 strains. and AY.43.5, with relative frequencies close to 5% in recent weeks, although its circulation is expected to decrease in the next few weeks”, says the INSA.
Covid-19 has caused more than 5.4 million deaths worldwide since the start of the pandemic, according to the latest report by Agence France-Presse.
In Portugal, since March 2020, 18,909 people have died and 1,303,291 cases of infection have been recorded, according to data from the General Directorate of Health.
The respiratory disease is caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, detected in late 2019 in Wuhan, a city in central China, and currently with variants identified in several countries.
A new variant, an Omicron, considered of concern by the World Health Organization (WHO), has been detected in southern Africa, but since the South African health authorities raised the alert on 24 November, infections have been reported in at least 110 countries. , being dominant in Portugal.