A member of the medical staff works in the hallways of the Intensive Care Unit where Covid-19 patients are hospitalized at the Etterbeek-Ixelles Hospital in Brussels.
A South African doctor who first raised the alarm over the new strain of omicron has described the symptoms as extremely mild.
The chair of the South African Medical Association told the British Broadcasting Corporation on Sunday that she started to see patients with unusual symptoms around Nov. 18 that differed slightly from those associated with the delta variant.
She said that it started with a male patient who was 33 years old and had been tired for a few days.
She said that the patient had a scratchy throat but no cough or loss of taste or smell, which are symptoms associated with previous strains of the coronaviruses.
Coetzee said she tested the male patient for Covid, and he was positive, as was his family, and then she saw more patients that day presenting with the same kinds of symptoms that differed from the delta variant.
She is a member of the South Africa's vaccine advisory committee.
She said that other patients she had seen had also experienced what she described as "mild" symptoms, and that her colleagues had noted similar cases.
Mild cases are seen in South Africa, but they are extremely mild for us. We haven't admitted anyone, I've spoken to other colleagues and they give the same picture.
It will take weeks for the WHO to understand how the variant may affect diagnostics.
Coetzee's initial observations are based on a small number of cases and experts are worried about the large number of omicron's genes. The strain has an increased risk of reinfection according to the WHO.
The new Covid strain, named omicron, was labeled a "variant of concern" by the WHO.
The variant is spreading in South Africa more rapidly than previous versions did, and could be triggering a new wave of infections, according to analysis by the Financial Times.
It could take a while to fully understand what specific symptoms are related to the new omicron variant.
The symptoms of covid have changed since the first case of the disease was reported in China. The alpha anddelta variant were found to cause different symptoms, for example, with the latter causing more headaches, a runny nose and a sore throat.
Mild to severe Covid symptoms can appear 2 to 14 days after exposure, according to the U.S. CDC.
The CDC has a list of symptoms that include a cold, a cough, a sore throat, headaches, nausea, vomiting, and a runny nose.
A swathe of countries have temporarily banned travel from several southern African countries where the variant has been found.
Coetzee said that the omicron variant had already spread to those countries and that countries like the U.S., U.K., Israel and EU were panicked.
I think you already have it in your country without even knowing it, definitely. Maybe we will say something different two weeks from now.
Margaret Harris told CNBC Monday that South Africa was to thank for raising the alarm over the new variant, which has already been found in the U.K., France, Israel, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Australia, Canada and Hong.
The WHO doesn't like to see travel restrictions but understands that countries need to take precautions based on their own epidemiological situations and risk-based analysis of the current data
The U.N. health agency said on Monday that the delta variant is still responsible for most of the current infections around the world.
More deaths are occurring in the unvaccinated because of the delta variant, WHO Chief Scientist Soumya Swaminathan told CNBC on Monday.
While we wait to find out more about the omicron variant, that is our priority.
