Soaring Omicron cases may lead to more dangerous variants: WHO

Stockholm

Soaring Omicron cases around the globe could increase therisk of a newer, more dangerous variant emerging, the World Health Organizationin Europe warned on Tuesday.

While the variant is spreading like wildfire around theworld, it appears to be far less severe than initially feared and has raisedhopes that the pandemic could be overcome and life return to more normality.

But WHO senior emergencies officer Catherine Smallwoodsounded an ominous note of caution, telling AFP that the soaring infectionrates could have the opposite effect.

"The more Omicron spreads, the more it transmits andthe more it replicates, the more likely it is to throw out a new variant. Now,Omicron is lethal, it can cause death ... maybe a little bit less than Delta,but who's to say what the next variant might throw out," Smallwood toldAFP in an interview.

Europe has registered more than 100 million Covid casessince the start of the pandemic, and more than five million new cases in thelast week of 2021, "almost dwarfing what we have seen in the past",Smallwood said.

"We're in a very dangerous phase, we're seeinginfection rates rise very significantly in Western Europe, and the full impactof that is not yet clear," she said.

Smallwood also noted that while "on an individual levelthere's probably a decreased risk of hospitalisation" with the Omicronvariant compared to Delta, overall, Omicron could pose a greater threat becauseof the sheer number of cases. "When you see the cases rise sosignificantly, that's likely to generate a lot more people with severe disease,ending up in hospital and possibly going on to die," she said.

Britain on Tuesday faced warnings of an impending hospitalcrisis due to staff shortages caused by a wave of Omicron infections, as thecountry's daily Covid caseload breached 200,000 for the first time.

Smallwood said she expected that scenario to play out inother European countries as well. "Even in well-capacitated, sophisticatedhealth systems there are real struggles that are happening at the moment, andit's likely that these will play out across the region as Omicron drives casesupwards."