The omicron variant has broken a record in the almost 22 months of the covid-19 pandemic; barely a month after it was identified, it has already far surpassed its predecessor in the first place of the variant SARS-CoV-2 infections worldwide, and it seems that it has come to stay. In South Africa, where that first identification of omicron took place, they are already talking about remission of infections, but it seems certain that we are facing the most contagious of the mutations of the virus that has plagued the entire planet since the beginning of 2020. As stated this week the director of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the twin combination of delta and omicron infections have caused a dangerous wave of infections that is leading to unparalleled figures in the total of the pandemic: both the United States and several European countries have exceeded their maximum figures for infections.
Incubation in omicron infections: shorter than none
The reduction in the incubation time of the disease from the contagion seems to be significantly less in the cases of omicron. A Norwegian study analyzed an outbreak generated at the end of November at a party, in which 81 infections were registered among 117 guests, one of whom came from South Africa. Here the incubation period was three days. A report from the Spanish Department of Health dated April 2021, spoke of an incubation time with the other variants of 5.1 on average, although the development of symptoms took a little longer: 11.7 days on average in practice all symptomatic cases. Another fact that has already been verified is that the Omicron variant causes a milder infection than the Delta, and therefore there are fewer people in the ICU, proportionally speaking in relation to the number of infected, than in the previous variants.
However, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has been categorical in assessing the current situation. “This puts and will continue to put immense pressure on exhausted healthcare workers and healthcare systems on the brink of collapse.” Some 900,000 cases are currently reported daily around the world. According to the WHO, the number of new infections by all variants grew by 57% in Europe in the week before December 26, and by 30% in the American continent.
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