With seven countries in the South-East Asia Region confirming cases of the new COVID-19 variant Omicron and the cases in the region appears to be spreading faster, the regional head of World Health Organization has emphasised on urgent scale up of public health and social measures to curtail its further spread. Dr Poonam Khetrapal, Regional Director, WHO South-East Asia Region, said that omicron should not be dismissed as mild, adding that even if it does cause less severe disease, the sheer number of cases could once again overwhelm health systems. Hence, health care capacity including ICU beds, oxygen availability, adequate health care staff and surge capacity need to be reviewed and strengthened at all levels, she cautioned.  

The overall threat posed by Omicron largely depends on three key questions – its transmissibility; how well the vaccines and prior SARS-CoV-2 infection protect against  it, and how virulent the variant is as compared to other variants, said Dr Ketrapal in a statement on Saturday.