Omicron could become dominant Covid strain in UK ‘within weeks’, says expert

Omicron could become the UK’s dominant variant within just weeks, according to an infectious diseases expert.

Speaking on Monday morning, Professor Paul Hunter said that the new strain could soon overtake Delta, pointing to a “rapid rise” in cases in South Africa.

The University of East Anglia academic told BBC Breakfast: “How it’s likely to spread in the UK is still uncertain.

“But I think the early signs are it will probably spread quite quickly and probably start outcompeting Delta, and become the dominant variant probably within the next weeks or a month or so at least.”

He estimated that the UK is already likely to have over one thousand cases of the new variant. To date, 246 cases have been officially confirmed of the strain.

The government has tightened travel rules in the wake of Omicron, with Nigeria being added to England's travel red list on Monday and pre-departure tests being required of all incoming travellers from Tuesday.

But Prof Hunter said travel bans would likely only have a small impact on Omicron transmission.

“Everything that we do has some benefit but I think that the travel restrictions at this stage will have a very minor impact on how we’re likely to see things develop over the coming weeks” he said.

“One of the problems is that it then demotivates other countries to be open about their own situations for fear of what they would see as economic sanctions.

“Once the infection is spreading in the country, border restrictions don’t really add anything.”

However, the Professor in Medicine said that the full picture of Omicron’s severity might not become fully known until after Christmas.

“If we’re going to look at cases in this country, we’re going to have to have enough cases to analyse and see if they’re getting more sick or not,” he said.

“And when we get that we’ll probably have several thousand cases.”

The warning comes after officials in South Africa said the new variant had become dominant in the country.

In France, a government advisor last week warned it could become the dominant Covid-19 strain in that country by the end of January.

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