MOSCOW, January 11. /TASS/. Virologist Anatoly Altshtein of the Gamaleya National Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology of the Russian Healthcare Ministry thinks that the lethality of the Omicron coronavirus strain will not be above 0.5% in Russia and 0.1-0.2% in the countries with a higher level of vaccination.

"Currently, it is difficult to calculate this lethality (caused by the Omicron coronavirus strain - TASS) very precisely, this will require more time but in general it, most likely, will not surpass 0.5%, and, I think, where the countries have been inoculated - we are not yet a sufficiently inoculated country and we should get vaccinated - there will be about 0.1-0.2% of lethality," he told the Moscow 24 TV channel on Tuesday.

The virologist noted that the emergence of the Omicron variant in the population can be tracked by a sharp increase in the level of incidence. "When the sharp increase in incidence begins, this will mean that at least 80-90% of the virus that we have is Omicron," the expert specified.

On November 26, the World Health Organization (WHO) designated the B.1.1.529 variant identified in South Africa as a "Variant of Concern" and assigned it the Greek letter omicron. The new strain has already been recorded in more than 100 countries. According to Russia’s sanitary watchdog, as of December 30, 2021, some 103 cases of this variant were detected in the country. Specialists think that the Omicron strain may represent a threat since it spreads much faster than others and contains numerous mutations.