Prime Minister Scott Morrison says Covid-19 Omicron variant is ‘less severe’ than first thought

Scott Morrison has made a huge prediction about the Omicron variant, saying it could be a ‘game changer’ in the global fight against Covid-19

The Omicron Covid-19 variant of-concern is less severe than first thought and could be an early indication that the virus is “stepping down”, the prime minister says.

Scott Morrison said it could potentially be a “game changer” across the globe as the world tries to recover from the two-year coronavirus pandemic.

“We have seen the severity of the illness playing out to date not as the early indications were and I think it‘s fair to say that is potentially quite a game changer with the pandemic around the world about how the virus may well step down,” he told reporters on Friday morning.

“Our plan is to keep moving forward, not to go back. We’re not looking in the rear vision mirror.

“We’re not going back to what Australians have had to go through. We’re going to go forward and we’re going to live with this virus.”

Prime Minister Scott Morrison says Australia will live with the virus. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Jeremy Piper

Department of Health secretary Dr Brendan Murphy said there was still much to learn about the new variant, but the early signs were positive.

“Information out of South Africa suggests that we‘re not seeing a high incidence of hospitalisation and severe disease,” he said.

“But we still need to learn more, we have to get information from other countries who now have significant clusters of this virus and we’re still doing lab tests on this variant.”

Dr Murphy stressed the importance of the Covid-19 booster as extra protection against Omicron.

“There is a suggestion that the vaccines will benefit from a booster to protect against the strain,” he said.

“We don’t know how it will spread in Australia, but we do know that it is here and it’s just likely to spread but we don’t need to panic, we just need to study it more and very importantly, make sure we get boosters.

“What we’ve seen across this country now with the transmission in Victoria and New South Wales is very low rates of hospitalisation and severe disease in the vaccinated population.

“These vaccines do protect people against serious disease.”

Australians are being urged to get their boosters as further protection against Omicron. Picture: NCA NewsWire / David Crosling

It comes as experts from the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI) on Friday gave final approval for Australian children aged five to 11 to start getting their Covid-19 jabs.

Mr Morrison spruiked the development at Destro’s Pharmacy in Drummoyne on Friday, saying the move was a major step forward in the nation’s vaccine rollout.

Originally published as Prime Minister Scott Morrison says Covid-19 Omicron variant is ‘less severe’ than first thought