A leading trinity professor has said that Irish people are being "naive" to the threat of Omicron after studies in South Africa showed the variant to be less severe than Delta.
Trinity Immunology Professor, Kingston Mills was speaking on Newstalk Breakfast this morning where he gave his opinion on why recently published data from South Africa might not apply in Ireland.
"People might not know this but in South Africa, up to 80% of the entire population has been infected already – not with Omicron but with other variants mainly Delta," he said.
Irish people are being "naive" to the threat of Omicron if they've never been infected with a previous variant or aren't fully vaccinated.
"That population is probably quite small now, but they may be the ones that really will suffer with this variant. We don’t know yet."
This warning comes after new data about the Omicron variant was published in South Africa and the UK.
It showed that those who have contracted the Omicron variant were up to two thirds less likely to need hospital treatment.
In South Africa, the percentage admitted to hospital in previous waves stood at 13% while during Omicron, just 5.7% of people were admitted to hospital.
The proportion of people who died when in hospital is also far lower than in any of the previous waves of Covid-19.
During Omicron, 5.6% of people admitted to hospital with Covid-19 died, compared with at least 19% during Alpha or Delta.
