Deadlier variant 'may spring' from Omicron

Soaring Omicron cases around the globe could increase the risk of a newer, more dangerous variant emerging, the World Health Organization warns.

While Omicron is spreading like wildfire, it appears to be far less severe than initially feared and has raised hopes that the pandemic could be overcome and life return to more normality.

But WHO emergencies officer Catherine Smallwood sounded an ominous note of caution, saying the soaring infection rates could have the opposite effect.

"The more Omicron spreads, the more it transmits and the more it replicates, the more likely it is to throw out a new variant. Now, Omicron is lethal, it can cause death ... maybe a little bit less than Delta, but who's to say what the next variant might throw out," Smallwood said.

Europe has registered more than 100 million Covid cases since the start of the pandemic and more than five million new cases in the last week of 2021, "almost dwarfing what we have seen in the past," Smallwood said.

Smallwood noted that while "on an individual level there's probably a decreased risk of hospitalization" with Omicron compared to Delta, overall, Omicron could pose a greater threat because of the sheer number of cases.

"When you see the cases rise so significantly, that's likely to generate a lot more people with severe disease, ending up in hospital and possibly going on to die," she said.

Britain faced warnings of an impending hospital crisis due to staff shortages caused by Omicron infections as the country's daily Covid caseload breached 200,000 for the first time.

Smallwood said she expects that scenario to play out in other European countries as well.

But Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he hoped to ride out the pandemic without further restrictions.

With Omicron causing fewer serious illnesses than earlier variants and the success of a nationwide vaccine booster program, the government believes existing controls are enough to protect the National Health Service without harming lives and livelihoods, Johnson said.

US President Joe Biden also urged concern but not alarm as the United States set records for daily cases. The United States reported nearly one million new infections on Monday, the highest daily tally of any country and nearly double the previous US peak set a week ago.

Biden is trying to convince wary Americans that the current situation bears little resemblance to the onset of the pandemic or last year's deadly winter. He emphasized that vaccines, booster shots and therapeutic drugs have lessened the danger for the overwhelming majority of Americans who are fully vaccinated.

"You can still get Covid, but it's highly unlikely, very unlikely, that you'll become seriously ill," Biden said of vaccinated people. "There's no excuse ... for anyone being unvaccinated."

France's President Emmanuel Macron, meanwhile, faced anger from opponents and chaos in parliament after issuing a provocative warning to people in the country not yet vaccinated that he would pressure them as much as possible by limiting access to key aspects of life.

"As for the non-vaccinated, I really want to piss them off," he told Le Parisien newspaper.

"We have to tell [the unvaccinated] ... you will no longer be able to go to the restaurant. You will no longer be able to go for a coffee, you will no longer be able to go to the theater. You will no longer be able to go to the cinema," he said.

But Macron came under fire from challengers in the presidential race who accused him of overstepping the line with his remarks.

In China, Zhengzhou city ordered its nearly 13 million residents to take tests yesterday after 11 cases were detected in recent days.

Everyone must be tested to "thoroughly uncover hidden infections," the city's government said. The mass-testing order came as case numbers in the locked-down city of Xi'an fell to their lowest in weeks - 91 cases.