New Covid wave expected in coming weeks, EMA official warns
A new wave of Covid-19 cases, mostly driven by the new subvariants of Omicron, is expected in the coming weeks, the European Medicines Agency’s (EMA) head of vaccines strategy, Marco Cavaleri, warned Wednesday.
“The pandemic is not over yet,” he said.
The Omicron BQ1 variant was identified in at least five European countries last week, Cavaleri said, adding that the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) predicts that the BQ1 variant and the closely related BQ1.1 will become the dominant strains from mid-November to early December.
“It is not yet known whether it will be more transmissible or cause more severe disease than the BA4 and BA5 variants, but what is known is that it has a greater ability to escape immunity conferred by vaccination, having contracted Covid, or available monoclonal antibodies,” he said.
On Tuesday, Greek health authorities announced 52,966 new confirmed cases of Covid-19 for the week between October 17 and October 23. The National Organization for Public Health (EODY) also announced 138 virus-related deaths over the same period.
