GENEVA, Jan 5: More evidence is emerging that the Omicron coronavirus variant is affecting the upper respiratory tract, causing milder symptoms than previous variants and resulting in a "decoupling" in some places between soaring case numbers and low death rates, a World Health Organization official said on Tuesday.

SYDNEY, Dec 28: Australia reported its first confirmed death from the new Omicron variant of COVID-19 on Monday amid its biggest daily surge in infections, but the authorities refrained from imposing new restrictions saying hospitalisation rates remained low.

NEW DELHI, Dec 26: India will start administering COVID-19 booster shots as a precautionary measure to healthcare and frontline workers from Jan. 10, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Saturday, as cases of the Omicron coronavirus variant rose across the country.

BRUSSELS, Dec 16: Omicron is expected to be the dominant coronavirus variant in the European Union’s 27 nations by mid-January, the bloc’s top official said Wednesday amid concerns that a dramatic rise in infections will leave Europe shrouded in gloom during the holiday season.

Dec 8: As the omicron coronavirus variant spreads in southern Africa and pops up in countries all around the world, scientists are anxiously watching a battle play out that could determine the future of the pandemic. Can the latest competitor to the world-dominating delta overthrow it?

JOHANNESBURG, Dec 6: Higher hospital admissions among children during a fourth wave of COVID-19 infections in South Africa that has been driven by the Omicron coronavirus variant should not prompt panic as infections have been mild, a health official said on Saturday.

KATHMANDU, Dec 3: The government has decided to impose a ban on the arrival of people from nine countries including those from the African continent which recorded the cases of Omicron virus. The decision came into effect at midnight Thursday.

JOHANNESBURG, Dec 1: On Friday Nov. 19, Raquel Viana, Head of Science at one of South Africa's biggest private testing labs, sequenced the genes on eight coronavirus samples - and got the shock of her life.

JOHANNESBURG, Dec 1: The Omicron coronavirus variant detected in southern Africa could be the most likely candidate to displace the highly contagious Delta variant, the director of South Africa's communicable disease institute said on Tuesday.

GENEVA, Nov 30: The heavily mutated Omicron coronavirus variant is likely to spread internationally and poses a very high risk of infection surges that could have "severe consequences" in some places, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday.

Nov 30: As scientists race to understand the consequences of the Omicron COVID-19 variant, one of the most important questions is whether this new version of the coronavirus can outrun the globally dominant Delta variant.

LONDON/AMSTERDAM, Nov 29: The Omicron coronavirus variant spread around the world on Sunday, with new cases found in the Netherlands, Denmark and Australia even as more countries imposed travel restriction to try to seal themselves off.