WHO: Omicron Could Have 'Major Impact' on Pandemic

The World Health Organization sounded a hopeful-yet-cautious note this week on the omicron variant of the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to published reports, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that “certain features of omicron, including its global spread and large number of mutations, suggest it could have a major impact on the course of the pandemic.”

While early studies suggest that this newest variant may more easily reinfect patients who have previously had the virus or been vaccinated compared to earlier variants, omicron could also cause milder disease.

“Emerging data from South Africa suggests an increased risk of reinfection with Omicron,” Tedros said at a news briefing at WHO’s headquarters in Geneva, adding that “there is also some evidence that omicron causes milder disease than delta.”

But Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s technical lead on COVID-19, stressed that is too early to make conclusions about the severity of the variant, as patients in South Africa with a more mild case of the illness may not have run the full gauntlet of infection.

So far, omicron has been identified in almost 60 countries. The WHO said new cases plateaued around the world last week with more than four million new infections, similar to the week before. However, worldwide deaths rose by 10% in the past week, with more than 52,500 new COVID fatalities.

The WHO warned against complacency, with the group’s Emergencies Director Michael Ryan noting that data suggests that omicron is “efficiently transmitting, and probably more efficiently transmitting than even the delta variant.”

“That does not mean that the virus is unstoppable,” he said. “But it means the virus is more efficient at transmitting between human beings. And, therefore, we have to redouble our efforts to break those chains of transmission to protect ourselves to protect others.”

Read more: Omicron Upends Expectations for Gifting Experiences This Holiday Season

Earlier this month, National Retail Federation CEO Matt Shay projected that omicron could disrupt holiday spending patterns this year, shifting more dollars to physical items.

“We know, unfortunately, that when the variants have had a real impact on the economy, the goods side of the economy has actually benefited from that, because people change behavior away from the experience side of the economy and spend more time and more dollars engaged in the goods side of the economy,” he said in an interview with PYMNTS.