It has been a month since the new coronavirus variant, dubbed ‘Omicron’ by World Health Organisation (WHO) on November 26, threw the scientific community in a tizzy. First detected in South Africa and Botswana, the variant is now present in around 95 nations.
The countries such as Britain and the United States is looking to bring back curbs to prevent the spread of the variant that is believed to be more contagious than the other variants. Israel has announced to offer a fourth dose of Covid vaccine following the death of one Omicron patient.
The UK government on Wednesday reported 106,122 new virus cases in the last 24 hours, the first time the daily figure has topped 100,000, as the Omicron variant spreads rapidly. The country has 24,968 cases of the Omicron variant.
Amid the Omicron surge, Israel announced the plan to offer a fourth dose of the COVID-19 vaccine to health workers and people older than 60. Israel has 340 known cases of Omicron variant and one related death, as per the country’s health department.
In the United States, while the Delta variant remains dominant, Omicron is now estimated to represent about 3% of circulating cases, as per the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention.
This has prompted a leading health expert to say that Omicron will soon strike millions of people. “We’re really just about to experience a viral blizzard,” Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, told CNN last week.
“In the next three to eight weeks, we’re going to see millions of Americans are going to be infected with this virus, and that will be overlaid on top of Delta,” he further said.
Osterholm also expressed concern over the strain this rapid rise in infection will put on the country’s healthcare system.
The contagious omicron variant has been raging around the world and it will likely cause a new wave of cases in the U.S., Dr Anthony Fauci cautioned the globe.
“This virus is extraordinary,” Fauci had told a news channel recently.
While scientists are still studying the variant, what we know so far concludes that Omicron carries about 50 mutations not seen in combination before, “including more than 30 mutations in the gene for the spike protein that the coronavirus uses to attach to human cells,” as reported by New York Times.
