Omicron not more severe than Delta, existing vaccines will work: WHO

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has laid to rest apprehensions about the efficacy of existing vaccines against the new strain. A top WHO official told the AFP news agency on Tuesday that there is no reason to assume that Omicron is more severe than the variants which came before, or that existing vaccines will fail against it. Michael Ryan, the World Health Organisation's emergencies director, told AFP that there currently is no indication to suggest that Omicron, although highly infectious, causes a more severe disease than previous Covid-19 variants such as Delta. The existing vaccines should protect people who contract Omicron against the worst outcomes of the disease, he said. “We have highly effective vaccines that have proved effective against all the variants so far, in terms of severe disease and hospitalisation, and there's no reason to expect that it wouldn't be so [for Omicron],” the WHO official was quoted.

Meanwhile, the WHO's Europe official said that mandatory vaccinations against the coronavirus are an absolute last resort.“Mandates around vaccination are an absolute last resort and only applicable when all feasible options to improve vaccination uptake have been exhausted,” WHO Europe director Hans Kluge said.  Kluge added that public confidence and trust in authorities needed to be considered. EU health agencies have recommended that Covid-19 vaccines be mixed and matched for both initial courses and booster doses as the region battles rising cases ahead of Christmas.