Unvaccinated people are particularly susceptible to omicron, as are individuals who have not been exposed to COVID-19 before, disease specialist Sanne said.
“At this time, we think about 75% to 80% of hospitalizations are unvaccinated," he said. "It could be as large as 40% of the population that has not yet either been vaccinated or had a previous infection with coronavirus up until now,” he noted. “So, we have a large pool of people who can still present with overwhelming infection and severe disease,” he said.
Since detection of the variant was first announced in southern Africa last month, scientists have been hoping that most cases would be mild.
Health authorities say omicron is re-infecting some people who have been vaccinated, but mostly their symptoms are not severe.
One of the country’s top epidemiologists, Salim Abdool Karim, told VOA that current vaccines should provide “good protection” against omicron.