MOSCOW, January 20. /TASS/. The number of severe coronavirus cases is unlikely to decline amid the spread of the Omicron variant, Deputy Director of the Russian sanitary watchdog’s Central Research Institute of Epidemiology Alexander Gorelov told TASS.

"It appears at the moment that it causes a milder form of the disease but it’s just an illusion. Given the scale of the pandemic, the number of severe cases should not be expected to decline. Omicron is highly contagious because it has a high affinity for the human receptors that it clings to. As a result, viral load rapidly rises and the virus quickly multiplies," the expert explained.

Gorelov added that Omicron’s incubation period was shorter at three to five days.

Director of the Global Virus Network Center of Excellence Konstantin Chumakov said earlier that Omicron caused quite mild symptoms, bringing the mortality rate down to 0.1%.

The B.1.1.529 coronavirus strain, named after the Greek letter omicron, was first discovered in southern Africa. As of January 18, a total of 1,682 Omicron cases were recorded in Russia. Head of the Russian sanitary watchdog Anna Popova said on January 11 that 305 Omicron patients had been identified in the country. That said, the number of Omicron cases in Russia increased more than five-fold in a week.