These are the positive and negative news about the new Omicron variant

The freshly detected Omicron mutant can infect four times faster than the previous variants of the coronavirus. Up to now, the new mutant has been detected in 38 countries and has caused millions of infections worlwide. The good news is that no fatalities caused by the Omicron mutant have been recorded so far.

The Omicron variant of the coronavirus was discovered at the end of last month. Since then, the new mutant has spread extremely rapidly on a global level, causing significant concern among health professionals. So far, it has been detected in 38 countries and millions of infections have been reported by researchers, the majority of which have been registered in Africa. Here, the number of infections increased from 2,300 to 16,000 within a week until last Friday – reported by Portfolio.

On a global scale, the latest areas where the new mutant was registered are the United States and Australia. As the Hungarian news portal Helló Magyar reports, the WHO has issued several reports on the two most important properties of Omicron, the severity of the infectivity, and the disease it causes.

Experience to date has shown that the new variant causes mild symptoms but the disease spreads extremely rapidly.

Based on current data, the Omicron mutant infects nearly four times easier than the previous variants. This also explains the rapid growth of infections in Africa that has recently reached Europe, America, and Australia as well. Still, every cloud has a silver lining.

Read also: 500,000 get Covid jabs during vaccination drive, a new variant not detected in Hungary

The good news is that no fatal case, where Omicron was registered as the cause of death, has been reported to the World Health Organization so far.

Nevertheless, further observations have been made, suggesting that those who have previously faced the disease, precisely because of the large number of mutations, are almost as exposed to re-infection as those who have not been attacked by any of the variants so far.

The negative effects of the recently detected Omicron mutant can also be observed in the tourism sector. Due to the increasing number of cases and the re-imposed restrictions, the Hungarian low-cost airline Wizzair has been experiencing a significant decrease in the number of bookings. In some countries, including Israel, the United Kingdom and Morocco, they have already had to reduce the number of flights specifically due to the decrease in demand resulting from the emergence of the Omicron variant. According to the Hungarian travel agencies, customers’ booking habits have significantly changed as a result of the pandemic. The majority of tourists book relatively late, a few days prior to their departure. Still, it is encouraging that the demand to travel is much higher during the Christmas-New Year period compared to last year – reported by Mfor.

Read alsoWizzAir: 90 pc of the crew members vaccinated

Source: hellomagyar.hu; portfolio.hu; mfor.hu