The Omicron variant is progressing at an impressive rate, in Belgium as elsewhere. The good thing is, it doesn’t appear to have an impact on ICU deaths and admissions.
What exactly is this variant? Yves Van Laethem told our colleagues from L’Avenir that “the Omicron variant is clearly less aggressive than its predecessors”. “It brings less to the hospital, less to intensive care and still leads to fewer deaths,” said the interfederal spokesperson.
If it is less aggressive, it is however very contagious and this necessarily has a weight on hospitalizations. As Yves Van Laethem points out, the variant now represents 85 to 90% of infections! But what exactly is the intensity of this wave of the epidemic? “For now, we have a curve that is already very vertical. We really have an extremely rapid increase in the number of new cases, ”explains the epidemiologist.
As the spokesperson specifies, “we can hope to reach a peak somewhere between the middle and the end of January” concerning Omicron, if one relies on data from other countries. But he says, however, that “we can expect a higher peak than that of the fourth wave”.
As for health measures, for Yves Van Laethem, they should “certainly not be reduced”. “It would probably be necessary, as a precaution, to strengthen them a little, but that is not why it is necessary to close everything and close the country,” he adds.
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