Eleven cases of Omicron in Italy, with other cases suspicious pending confirmation, and a European framework already “very serious” which, due to the spread of the new variant, joined to “Holiday period” it can “get worse” further. At the gates of the Christmas holidays this is the picture of the situation. The numbers, still limited and not exhaustive, were provided by the president of the Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Silvio Brusaferro: “Currently in Italy there are 11 sequences Omicron variant, others are suspicious, and affect more regions ”, that is Calabria, Campania, Sardinia, Veneto e Bolzano. “They involve cases of people who had passed through South Africa or their close contacts “, explained the number one of the ISS.
If currently the Italian monitoring – pending the results of the flash survey carried out on Monday – does not return an alarming picture for the new variant, the European Agency for Disease Prevention and Control (Ecdc) warns about what has been happening in Europe for months now epicenter of the new resumption of contagion worldwide: “We are in a very serious situation with high levels of transmissibility Covid ”, explained the director Andrea Ammon warning that “the upcoming holiday period, in which contacts between groups of people increase, can make things worse”. And with “the further expansion we await from the Omicron variant, the situation could really pass from bad to worse”. Reason for which “it is necessary to take others prevention measures, in parallel with an expansion of vaccination “.
Among the countries of the Old Continent that have recorded the highest number of cases of Omicron to date is the United Kingdom, which has updated the count with 101 new sequences that bring the total to 437. The United Kingdom’s Health Safety Agency United explaining that of the 101 new cases, 72 were confirmed in England, 28 in Scotland and one in Wales. “From the first indications it emerged that the Omicron variant is more transmissible than the Delta,” said the premier Boris Johnson. However, a spokesperson said according to reports Sky News, Johnson told ministers that he is “too soon” to draw conclusions about the characteristics of the new variant. Meanwhile, the health authorities of the Canary Islands have announced that they have diagnosed the first known case of Omicron infection in the archipelago. The infected patient is a “middle-aged” man, vaccinated against Covid with a complete cycle, which arrived in the Canary Islands a few days ago from South Africa. Meanwhile, updates on four other positive cases diagnosed in the Canaries, adds the note from the regional health service.