The Omicron variant of the COVID-19 virus has been ruled to be the most dominant variant presently in the British Virgin Islands, surpassing the Delta and Mu variants.
This was confirmed by the Acting Chief Medical Officer Dr. Ronald Georges during a recent press conference.
He said the discovery was made after half of the positive COVID-19 samples dating back from mid-December which were sent to the Caribbean Public Health Agency in Trinidad, returned positive for Omicron.
“As the minister said, cases that came in that were tested I think from December 18th, those are showing about 50% of those cases submitted for genetic typing were Omicron and this is how Omicron functions. It comes in and it slowly out competes all other variants to become the dominant variant. So by now, given the numbers and the rapid increase we can safely guesstimate that Omicron is the dominant variant of COVID in the BVI,” he stated.
It was evident based on characteristics of recent spike
Dr. Georges said that medical experts in the territory had previously suspected that the current spike in the BVI was linked to the Omicron variant.
He said this was due to the many similar traits of the virus that were observed in the reported positive cases.
“We would have noticed over the last 2-3 three weeks the very severe increase in numbers of cases. I think persons would also have noticed that the cases amongst the general population are much milder, the infection is milder. Yes we do have a number of people hospitalized, but they’re also being discharged quicker than the previous surge. We also have nobody in ICU…persons are simply on low flow oxygen, so fewer persons needing more intense medical therapy when I went to the hospital,” Dr. Georges said.
He added, “So clearly this is a completely different picture to what we experienced earlier this year when we had pretty severe clinical picture where a number of persons the second week of that surge were coming into the emergency room with difficulty breathing. We had a number of persons in ICU, so, a different picture. So, based on that picture, a milder profile, a much quicker increase, it was obvious that we were dealing with something different.”
More cases expected in the coming days
The Acting CMO said that with the confirmation of the highly contagious variant, it means that in the coming days more cases are expected to be recorded.
This he said could mean that more hospitalisations will be likely, despite the mild nature of the virus.
He said, “So what does that mean for us? So that means that we’re going to see quite an increase in cases. The doubling time for Omicron is considered between two and three days. So Omicron is much more efficient at spreading from person to person and increases in numbers are much more drastic than the other types of other variants that have been in circulation. So that’s one point. The other point is that Omicron tends to be milder in most persons so you have a larger proportion of asymptomatic and very mildly, symptomatic, patients or clients.”
“We would know that people who have had infections describe, you know, a sore throat, itchy throat, head cold, stuffy nose, a few of them have chest cold. And some of them are more severe and have to go to the emergency room but by and large a lot of people have very mild symptoms for a short period and then recover. So that is the picture of Omicron. The challenge here is even though it’s mild the sheer numbers of cases that are created can lead to significant hospitalizations,” he further explained.
Dr. Georges said that the medical professionals have solid plans in place to brace for the further expected cases.
The last COVID-19 statistics revealed that the BVI as of Monday January 10, had recorded 1272 active positive cases, with 16 hospitalisations and 40 COVID-related deaths.
There were also some 243 recoveries.