A Study by the South African Medical Research Council has found that cases of Omicron in the epicentre of the outbreak show a smaller number of patients have needed oxygen than in previous waves

It also found that 76 per cent of patients didn’t know they had COVID when they were admitted to hospital for other conditions.

Compared to outbreaks of other variants, the Omicron outbreak was found to have a relatively low number of COVID-19 pneumonia hospitalisations in the general, high care and ICU wards

This comes as the new variant was first detected on November 24, sparking global panic with countries shutting their international borders.

Cases have now been recorded in over 38 countries around the world.

So far researchers have found Omicron to be more infectious but less severe, with patients having a shorter average length of stay in hospital compared to patients with other variants.