Maxym Marusenko | NurPhoto | Getty Images
Hospital admissions are increasing across South Africa, but it’s too early to know whether the Omicron variant will lead to an increase in severe Covid-19 cases, according to the World Health Organization.
Maria Van Kerkhove, technical director of Covid at WHO, said on Wednesday that some patients infected with Omicron are showing mild symptoms, but there have also been reports of cases where the disease becomes more severe. Hospital stays could increase due to an overall increase in Covid cases, and not necessarily because Omicron is more deadly, Van Kerkhove said.
“In terms of severity, there are studies looking at hospital admissions, examining people who are hospitalized whether or not they have this variant,” Van Kerkhove told reporters during an update in Geneva . “We also get a picture of some of the cases uncovered in other countries.”
The WHO reported Wednesday that 23 countries have identified Omicron cases so far, up from 18 just two days ago, and that number is expected to rise in the coming days and weeks.
US health officials have confirmed the country’s first Omicron case in California, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Wednesday. The person, who was fully vaccinated, had returned to the San Francisco area from South Africa on November 22 and tested positive on November 29, said Dr. White House chief medical officer Anthony Fauci told reporters on Wednesday.
Van Kerkhove said there was early evidence that Omicron is more contagious and WHO expects to have more information on the transmission of the variant within days.
“It’s certainly possible that one of the scenarios is that as the virus continues to develop, it still has a fitness advantage, which means it can become more transmissible than Delta, we’ll have to see,” she said. “But we don’t yet know exactly how difficult it is.” Van Kerkhove noted that there is a “surveillance bias” in reported Covid cases that could tarnish the early data.
Dr. Scott Gottlieb, board member of vaccine maker Pfizer and former commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, told CNBC on Wednesday that there had been a mini-delta surge in South Africa as well as a surge in a separate variant, C.1.2 making efforts to clarify Omicron’s transmission and virulence difficult.
Stephane Bancel, CEO of vaccine maker Moderna, told CNBC on Monday that omicron symptoms reported in South Africa may not be a good indicator of virulence of the variant in other parts of the world, given that the country has a much younger and healthier population than European countries and the United States. Older people usually have a higher risk of developing severe Covid than younger people.
“The molecular profile of the types of mutations you see (in Omicron) suggests that they may be more transmissible and elude some of the protection offered by vaccines,” Fauci said Wednesday. “But we don’t know that now.”
Van Kerkhove said Wednesday that public health measures to combat the delta, which is currently the dominant variant worldwide, should be stepped up to combat Omicron.
“That doesn’t mean a ban. That means using proven public health and social measures, ”said Van Kerkhove. The WHO recommended last week that people, regardless of their vaccination status, wear masks and distance themselves socially.
WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus advised countries on Wednesday against imposing “blanket travel bans” and warned that such measures would not prevent the spread of Omicron and would put a heavy toll on the economies of the nations concerned. The US, European Union and UK restricted travel from countries in southern Africa after South Africa warned the world about Omicron. Botswana said on Friday that it first discovered the variant in four foreigners who entered the country on November 7 as part of its regular Covid surveillance on a diplomatic mission.
“I am grateful to Botswana and South Africa for quickly identifying, sequencing and reporting this variant,” said Tedros. “I am deeply concerned that these countries are now being punished by others for doing the right thing.”
Van Kerkhove said the introduction of travel restrictions on countries reporting new variants to the international community could make them reluctant to share critical information in the future.
“If there is a negative incentive for countries to feel they are being penalized for recording this information, that is of course a cause for concern for us,” she said. “We are relying on this information, quite frankly.”
Fauci defended the U.S. travel restrictions on Wednesday, describing them as a temporary measure designed to give health officials time to better understand the virus variant.
“Nobody believes that a travel ban will prevent infected people from coming to the United States,” said Fauci. “But we had to buy some time to prepare and understand what was going on. So we are viewing this as a temporary measure.”
WHO will hold a meeting on December 6 to discuss how well natural and vaccine-induced immunity to Covid, including the Omicron variant, is holding up. Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, the organization’s chief scientist, said the world’s main goal should be to ensure that as many people as possible get their first series of vaccinations, especially those who are susceptible.
“There are all countries that still have vulnerable populations who have not been vaccinated for one reason or another,” said Swaminathan. “Of course there are a large number of low-income countries where it didn’t happen because we didn’t have the supplies.”
Wealthy nations like the United States have started offering booster doses to the general public as the vaccine’s effectiveness wears off over time. This has created controversy internationally as many people in poorer countries have very limited access to vaccines.
