West witnessing worrying Omicron-driven Covid surge. Death rate is silver lining
The record daily case of coronavirus disease (Covid-19) in the United States this week has caused fresh concerns about the Omicron variant as it continues to spread rapidly across the globe.
The United Kingdom, France and the US have been witnessing an exponential surge in Covid-19 cases, with Britain reporting over 2,200 daily cases per million people. While France is the close second with over 2,000 daily infections per million people, the US is quickly catching up with the worst-hit countries.
The fatality rate, however, remains the silver lining of the Covid wave fuelled by the highly contagious Omicron variant. In January 2021, when Britain was reporting the unprecedented surge in daily cases, the fatality rate was around 18 deaths per million people. Now that the UK is reporting almost three times daily infections from January last year, the number of daily new confirmed deaths per million people is hovering around 1.47, less than one-tenth of the fatality rate recorded a year before.
Experts suggest that the low fatality rate can be attributed to the high vaccination coverage in the country this time.
According to Our World In Data, the seven-day rolling average of daily new infections is currently around 1,100 per million people, way above its January peak of 756. The average daily deaths related to Covid currently stand at around 4 per million people, while it was at 10 per million people in January 2021.
Dr Suresh Kumar, MD of Delhi’s LNJP hospital, said that 138 Omicron cases were treated in the hospital last month as the infections continue to increase at an alarming rate. Kumar told news agency ANI that 95 per cent of them have recovered and returned home, adding that all Omicron patients at the hospital are stable.
“As many as three children were found Omicron positive in the last one month. Two have been discharged while the third one is recovering and stable at present”, added the LNJP MD.
The symptoms are less visible in the vaccinated population while in children the symptoms are moderate fever and loose motion, according to the doctor.
“The children will get vaccinated in the next two weeks and we can expect fewer Covid-19 cases after that”, said Kumar.