(Geneva) The level of risk linked to the Omicron variant remains very high, estimated the World Health Organization (WHO) in its weekly bulletin, the number of contaminations with COVID-19 having reached a new record last week.
Posted at 8:22 p.m.
“Based on currently available data, the overall risk associated with Omicron remains very high,” the organization warned.
“More than 21 million new cases have been recorded (in the past seven days), which is the highest number of weekly cases recorded since the start of the pandemic,” she said.
The organization said the number of new cases had increased by 5% over the past week, compared to 20% the previous week. The overall incidence rate is increasing “slower”, however, she said.
The WHO also reported 50,000 new deaths, a stable figure from last week.
The Omicron variant remains dominant worldwide. The prevalence of the Delta variant is “continuously decreasing” while the Alpha, Beta and Gamma variants are circulating “very low(ly)”.
“Countries that saw an increase in Omicron cases in November and December 2021 have seen or are beginning to see a decline in cases” currently, the WHO added.
Omicron accounted for 89.1% of coronavirus specimens collected and examined in the past 30 days.
The data, uploaded to the global database GISAID, also shows that Delta, which previously dominated, now accounts for just 10.7% of cases.