(Finance) – After having spread widely in the United States, where it made its appearance, the subvariant of Omicron XBB.1.5 called “Kraken” “in the next month or two” could become dominant in Europe. And the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) forecastwhich defines the possibility of this happening as “moderate”, while reassuring that the severity of the infection does not seem different from the Omicron variants already widespread previously, especially as regards healthy and vaccinated people.
Faced with the new spread of the virus, three years after its appearance on the world scene, the WHO back to recommenduse of the mask, especially in enclosed spaces.
Kraken currently accounts for 82% of Covid cases in the US, and only 2.5% in Europe, but it’s the most transmissible subvariant seen so far, he said the World Health Organization. It definitely has “a growth edge,” he said Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO technical manager on Covidadding however that “no data show it is more harmful in terms of serious illness and deaths”.
Meanwhile, the most serious situation remains the one in China where, according to a study by Peking University, on January 11 there were 900 million infected, equal to more than half of the population of the Asian giant. That figure could still spike ahead of the January 23 Lunar New Year where hundreds of millions of people are expected to travel to join their families for the holiday. Beijing assures that “there are no new variants of the virus” or “significant mutations” of the already known strains, and the swabs carried out in Italian airports on passengers from China seem to confirm this.
In Italy cases dropped by 38.2% and deaths by 25.7%, according to the Bulletin of the Ministry of Health. The incidence also drops with 143 infected per 100,000 inhabitants, compared to 231 the previous week. Just as the employment rate in intensive care is decreasing (from 3.2 to 3.1%) and in the wards. Furthermore, no Region or autonomous province is classified at risk, seven are classified as moderate risk: these are Basilicata, Emilia Romagna, the Province of Trento, Puglia, Sardinia and Sicily, Umbria.