UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that at least one person died after contracting the Omicron coronavirus strain, local media reported on Monday.
"Sadly, yes Omicron is producing hospitalisations and sadly at least one patient has been confirmed to have died with Omicron," said Boris Johnson during a visit to a vaccination clinic in west London, as quoted by Sky News.
This is the first death reported among those infected with the Omicron strain. This comes hours after the UK coronavirus (COVID-19) alert level increased from Level 3 to Level 4 amid the surge in the Omicron variant cases.
The UK Department of Health and Social Care on Sunday had said that transmission of COVID-19 is already high in the community, mainly still driven by Delta, but the emergence of Omicron adds additional and rapidly increasing risk to the public and healthcare services.
"Early evidence shows that Omicron is spreading much faster than Delta and that vaccine protection against symptomatic disease from Omicron is reduced. Data on severity will become clearer over the coming weeks but hospitalisations from Omicron are already occurring and these are likely to increase rapidly," the UK Health Department statement said.
On Sunday, the UK had reported 1,239 new confirmed cases of the Omicron variant.
( With inputs from ANI )
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