As the fear of the new COVID-19 variant, Omicron is spreading, the World Health Organization (WHO) has now stressed an urgent scale-up of public health and social measures to curtail its further spread.

“Countries can – and must – prevent the spread of Omicron with the proven health and social measures. Our focus must continue to be to protect the least protected and those at high risk,” said Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh, Regional Director, WHO South-East Asia Region.

According to an official release by WHO, 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.

“From what we know so far, Omicron appears to spread faster than the Delta variant which has been attributed to the surge in cases across the world in the last several months,” Khetrapal Singh said.

Emerging data from South Africa suggests an increased risk of re-infection with Omicron, Khetrapal Singh said. She further stated that “there is still limited data on the clinical severity associated with Omicron. Further information is needed to fully understand the clinical picture of those infected with Omicron. We expect more information in the coming weeks.”

Omicron should not be dismissed as mild, Khetrapal Singh said, 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 needs to be reviewed and strengthened at all levels

On the impact of the new variant on vaccines, Dr Khetrapal Singh said preliminary data suggests that that vaccine may likely have reduced effectiveness against infections by the Omicron variant. She further said, however, studies are underway to better understand the extent to which Omicron may evade vaccine and/or infection-derived immunity and the extent to which current vaccines continue to protect against severe disease and death associated with Omicron.

“Vaccines are an important tool in our fight against the pandemic, but, as we know, vaccines alone will not get any country out of this pandemic. We must scale up vaccination and at the same time implement public health and social measures, which have proven critical to limiting transmission of COVID-19 and reducing deaths,” the Regional Director said.

According to the release, public health, and social measures include surveillance and response such as testing, genetic sequencing, contact tracing, isolation, and quarantine. They include personal protective measures such as masks; physical distancing; avoiding crowded, closed, and confined settings; ensuring hand hygiene and respiratory etiquette.