Omicron, the Disease Causing the Most Patients in the Past 100 Years

[Photo by Reuters Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Park Byung-hee] The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on the 5th (local time) that the COVID-19 Omicron variant appears to have caused the highest number of patients in a short period since the 1917-1918 influenza pandemic.

Health experts estimate that the number of COVID-19 cases worldwide during the 5 to 6 weeks when the Omicron variant was rampant surpasses the total infections caused by other diseases in similar periods in the past.

William Schaffner, a professor at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, evaluated that the only comparable case in terms of the global infection rate in a short period is the 1917-1918 influenza pandemic when compared to the spread speed of the Omicron variant.

According to health authorities of each country, since the Omicron variant was discovered at the end of November last year, it is estimated that 1 in 6 people in the UK, 1 in 5 in Denmark, and 1 in 9 in Israel contracted COVID-19.

In the United States, until mid-January when the Omicron variant peaked, 1 in 5 people were infected with the Omicron variant.

Trevor Bedford, a virologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, predicted that the number of Americans infected with Omicron could double by mid-February, saying, "It is astonishing that up to 40% of the population could be infected with the same pathogen over 8 weeks," and "There seems to be no similar precedent in modern times."

According to the international statistics site 'Our World in Data,' more than 84 million people worldwide were confirmed to have COVID-19 in January.

This is almost the same scale as the annual confirmed cases in 2020, the first year of the COVID-19 crisis, and considering many asymptomatic infections and untested cases, the actual number of infected people is estimated to be much higher.

In fact, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington School of Medicine estimated that 80-90% of Omicron variant infections are asymptomatic.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.