{"id":144500,"date":"2022-01-04T20:54:06","date_gmt":"2022-01-05T00:54:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/antiguanewsroom.com\/?p=144500"},"modified":"2022-01-04T20:54:06","modified_gmt":"2022-01-05T00:54:06","slug":"soaring-omicron-could-lead-to-more-dangerous-variants-who-warns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/antiguanewsroom.com\/soaring-omicron-could-lead-to-more-dangerous-variants-who-warns\/","title":{"rendered":"Soaring Omicron could lead to more dangerous variants, WHO warns"},"content":{"rendered":"
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(AFP) \u2014 Soaring Omicron cases around the globe could increase the risk of a newer, more dangerous variant emerging, the World Health Organization in Europe warned on Tuesday.<\/p>

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While the variant is spreading like wildfire around the world, it appears to be far less severe than initially feared and has raised hopes that the pandemic could be overcome and life return to more normality.<\/p>\n

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But WHO senior emergencies officer Catherine Smallwood sounded an ominous note of caution, telling AFP that the soaring infection rates could have the opposite effect.<\/p>

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\u201cThe more Omicron spreads, the more it transmits and the more it replicates, the more likely it is to throw out a new variant. Now, Omicron is lethal, it can cause death \u2026 maybe a little bit less than Delta, but who\u2019s to say what the next variant might throw out,\u201d Smallwood told AFP in an interview.<\/p>

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Europe has registered more than 100 million COVID cases since the start of the pandemic, and more than five million new cases in the last week of 2021, \u201calmost dwarfing what we have seen in the past\u201d, Smallwood said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re in a very dangerous phase, we\u2019re seeing infection rates rise very significantly in Western Europe, and the full impact of that is not yet clear,\u201d she said.<\/p>

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Smallwood also noted that while \u201con an individual level there\u2019s probably a decreased risk of hospitalisation\u201d with the Omicron variant compared to Delta, overall, Omicron could pose a greater threat because of the sheer number of cases.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you see the cases rise so significantly, that\u2019s likely to generate a lot more people with severe disease, ending up in hospital and possibly going on to die,\u201d she said.<\/p>

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Britain on Tuesday faced warnings of an impending hospital crisis due to staff shortages caused by a wave of Omicron infections, as the country\u2019s daily COVID caseload breached 200,000 for the first time.<\/p>

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Smallwood said she expected that scenario to play out in other European countries as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven in well-capacitated, sophisticated health systems there are real struggles that are happening at the moment, and it\u2019s likely that these will play out across the region as Omicron drives cases upwards.\u201d<\/p>\n

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(AFP) \u2014 Soaring Omicron cases around the globe could increase the risk of a newer, more dangerous variant emerging, the World Health Organization in Europe warned on Tuesday. While the variant is spreading like wildfire around the world, it appears to be far less severe than initially feared and has raised hopes that the pandemic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":144501,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-144500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-regional"],"yoast_head":"\nSoaring Omicron could lead to more dangerous variants, WHO warns - Antigua News Room<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/antiguanewsroom.com\/soaring-omicron-could-lead-to-more-dangerous-variants-who-warns\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Soaring Omicron could lead to more dangerous variants, WHO warns\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"(AFP) \u2014 Soaring Omicron cases around the globe could increase the risk of a newer, more dangerous variant emerging, the World Health Organization in Europe warned on Tuesday. 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