Omicron dominant Covid variant in Netherlands by January: Health institute

The Omicron variant of the coronavirus will probably displace the Delta variant as the most common variant in the Netherlands in early January. More than half of all infections will then be with the new virus variant. That is what the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) expects.

The variant spreads quickly. At the start of December, 1 in 1,000 cases involved Omicron.

What it means for the number of hospital admissions is uncertain, said RIVM boss Jaap van Dissel. During a briefing for parliament, he referred to British researchers' preliminary results. They expect about 2,400 hospital admissions per day in January "in our most optimistic scenario."

If that estimate is correct, that could translate to 600 hospital admissions per day for the Netherlands, said Van Dissel. Of those 600 people, 100 to 125 could end up in intensive care units per day. At the peak of the current wave in late November and early December, there were about 500 hospital admissions per day, of which about 50 were in intensive care.

Van Dissel also said that people vaccinated twice with the AstraZeneca vaccine do not seem to be protected against getting sick from the Omicron variant. "In the United Kingdom, it offers no protective effect for complaints of infection," Van Dissel said. He emphasized that this doesn't mean that AstraZeneca does not protect against more severe illness requiring hospitalization. "But we don't have those numbers yet."

The new Omicron variant will surpass other variants of the coronavirus in Europe within a month, the European Commission expects. "The number of new cases seems to be doubling every two or three days," said president Ursula von der Leyen. "That's huge."

The highly contagious Omicron variant was first identified in southern Africa and is spreading rapidly worldwide. Omicron has already supplanted the Delta variant in cities like London. Experts in Belgium, among others, consider that the new variant will also be dominant in their country before the end of the year.

"We hear that we should count on Omicron to be the new dominant variant in Europe by mid-January," Von der Leyen told the European Parliament. More work needs to be done on inoculation and boosting, she emphasized.