A senior World Health Organisation (WHO) official said on Tuesday (4 January) that hospitalisations and death rates linked to the spread of the more transmissible variant Omicron appeared to be lower than with previous strains.
"What we are seeing now is....the decoupling between the cases and the deaths," said WHO incident manager Abdi Mahamud.
He also noted that several studies suggest that Omicron appeared to affect mostly the upper respiratory tract, causing milder symptoms.
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Elena is EUobserver's editor-in-chief. She is from Spain and has studied journalism and new media in Spanish and Belgian universities. Previously she worked on European affairs at VoteWatch Europe and the Spanish news agency EFE.