The share of the omicron variant in infections investigated in Amsterdam has increased from 4 to 48 percent in eight days.
This is reported by the Argos consortium, a collaboration between the GGD Amsterdam and Amsterdam UMC. This makes the new variant almost dominant in the city.
In a random sample on December 20, 46 of the 95 corona cases examined were the omicron variant.
It seems that the omicron variant is much more contagious than the delta variant, which is still dominant in the rest of the Netherlands.
“The risk of serious disease is in any case not greater, it seems,” virologist and OMT member Menno de Jong told AT5 earlier .
The public health agency RIVM expects it will become the dominant strain of coronavirus by the end of the year.
South Africa
At the end of November, South Africa first reported the omicron variant.
Airspace in the Netherlands was closed to southern Africa soon after the discovery. Passengers on two flights from South Africa had to be tested on arrival.
Of the 624 passengers, 61 had corona, 13 of which were the omicron variant.
On December 8, two Amsterdammers tested positive for the omicron variant without having traveled. This meant that they had contracted the omicron in Amsterdam and the virus variant was therefore spreading locally.
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