Victoria detects ‘handful’ of new Omicron variant cases

Victoria has revealed it has detected multiple cases of the new “stealth” sub-variant of Omicron causing concern around the world.

The newest Covid Omicron variant has been detected in a “handful” of confirmed cases in Victoria, the state’s Covid commander Jeroen Weimar confirmed on Saturday.

Known as BA. 2, the new variant has been found to be more contagious than the original Omicron variant.

Covid commander Jeroen Weimar said the new Omicron variant had reached the state. Picture: NCA NewsWire / David Crosling

UK health authority data has shown the rate of transmission among household contacts was 13.4 per cent compared with 10.3 per cent for the original Omicron variant.

Mr Weimar said while it was “early days” Victoria was following international developments closely to understand how the new variant could impact the state.

“I’m aware there’s a very small number of cases that have been detected here Victoria and our clinical teams are working through with that,” he confirmed.

“We’re not screening every single Omicron case that we get, but as we see evidence of that it will be interesting to see whether it behaves differently, whether it’s different in terms of its infectivity, whether it’s different in terms of how it responds to the vaccine.

“Our public health teams are working very closely with their colleagues across Australia and internally to get all this information in.”

Victoria has reported a big drop in Covid cases. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Ian Currie

His comments came as Victoria recorded a drop in new cases and 31 Covid deaths in the past 24 hours.

There are currently 953 patients in Victorian hospitals being treated with the virus. Of those in hospital, 114 people are being treated in intensive care, with 39 people on ventilators.

The state has reported 12,250 new Covid-19 infections, reported from 6244 PCR tests and 6006 rapid antigen tests.

Saturday’s figures bring the total number of active cases in the state to 79,836.

It’s a major drop in the number of active cases reported on Friday, a decrease of more than 20,000 cases.

We thank everyone who got vaccinated and tested yesterday.

Our thoughts are with those in hospital, and the families of people who have lost their lives.

More data soon: https://t.co/OCCFTAtS1P#COVID19Vic#COVID19VicDatapic.twitter.com/PQ6WItzEfR

— VicGovDH (@VicGovDH) January 28, 2022

More than 37 per cent of Victorians aged over 18 have received a Covid-19 vaccine booster, with 22,139 doses administered at state hubs on Friday.

While experts believe Victoria is beginning to pass the peak of the Omicron wave, it’s expected cases will rise when students and teachers return to the classroom on Monday.

But authorities are hopeful it will not see numbers surge back to the mid-January peak.

A walk up vaccination blitz will occur at the weekend, in an effort to get more young children aged 5-11 vaccinated before their first day at school.

As of Friday, about 38 per cent of the five-to-11-year-old cohort had a first dose of the vaccine.