World records 500,000 deaths since omicron: WHO

The World Health Organisation (WHO) on Tuesday announced that half a million COVID-19 deaths had been recorded since the Omicron variant was discovered.

Abdi Mahamud, WHO Incident Manager, COVID-19 Incident Management Support Team, said that 130 million cases and 500,000 deaths had been recorded globally since Omicron was declared a variant of concern in late November.

It has since rapidly overtaken Delta as the world’s dominant COVID variant because it is more transmissible, though it appears to cause less severe illness.

Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO’s Technical Lead on COVID-19, said the sheer number of Omicron cases was “astounding”, while the true number of cases and deaths would be much higher than just those known about.

Coronavirus has killed nearly 5.75 million people since the first cases were identified in December 2019.