Fra ECDC- European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control
As of 13 December and since 12 December 2021, 920 additional SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant of concern (VOC) cases have been confirmed in the European Union and European Economic Area (EU/EEA), contributing to an overall total of 1 686 confirmed cases so far.
Confirmed cases have been reported by 23 EU/EEA countries: Austria (17), Belgium (30), Croatia (3), Cyprus (3), Czechia (8), Denmark (195), Estonia (26), Finland (20), France (59), Germany (82), Greece (3), Iceland (20), Ireland (10), Italy (27), Latvia (5), Liechtenstein (1), the Netherlands (62), Norway (958), Portugal (49), Romania (8), Slovakia (3) Spain (36) and Sweden (23), according to information from public sources. In addition, a number of probable cases have been reported in several countries.
Although cases reported initially were linked to travel, an increasing number of cases are now reported to have been acquired within the EU/EEA, including as parts of clusters and outbreaks, with cases also being detected in representative sampling within routine surveillance systems.
A preliminary analysis of the initial Omicron VOC cases reported to The European Surveillance System (TESSy) shows that imported or travel-related cases account for 22 (13%) cases, while 121 (70%) of the cases reported to TESSy have been acquired locally, including 78 (45%) cases sampled as part of local outbreak investigations.
EU/EEA countries reporting cases without recent travel history/direct contact with travellers outside the EU/EEA include Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Spain and Iceland. This indicates that undetected community transmission could be ongoing in the EU/EEA.
All cases for which there is available information on severity were either asymptomatic or mild. There have been no Omicron-related deaths reported thus far. This data should be assessed with caution, as the number of confirmed cases is too low to understand if the disease clinical spectrum of Omicron differs from that of previously detected variants.
