A South African doctor who raised the alarm over Omicron said on Sunday dozens of her patients suspected of having the new variant had only shown mild symptoms and recovered fully without hospitalisation.
Angelique Coetzee, chair of the South African Medical Association, told AFP she had seen around 30 patients over the past 10 days who tested positive for Covid-19 but had unfamiliar symptoms.
"What brought them to the surgery was this extreme tiredness," she said, speaking from Pretoria, where she practices. She said this was unusual for younger patients.
Most were men aged under 40.
Just under half were vaccinated. They also had mild muscle aches, a "scratchy throat" and dry cough, she said. Only a few had a slightly high temperature.
These very mild symptoms were different to other variants. Coetzee said it was unfortunate that Omicron had been hyped as "this extremely dangerous virus variant" with multiple mutations while its virulency was still unknown.
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