Health minister Paulette Lenert (LSAP) and chief medical officer Jean-Claude Schmit announced at a media briefing on Monday afternoon that Luxembourg has recorded its first case of the omicron variant of Sars-CoV-2.

The 30-year-old woman working in a nursing home in southern Luxembourg  is displaying several symptoms and is under medical supervision, Schmit said.

The director of Luxembourg’s health administration said that the patient, who is fully vaccinated but has not yet received a booster shot, had not been travelling as far as he knew. Authorities are still trying to discover where she may have become infected. Relevant precautions have been taken at the care home where she is employed.

South Africa first sounded the alarm bells over the variant on 24 November, leading to widespread travel bans and against the country and others in the region, including Namibia, Botswana, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Lesotho and Eswatini.

“Certain features of omicron, including its global spread and large number of mutations, suggest it could have a major impact on the course of the pandemic,” said World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus at a media briefing on 8 December.

But the UN’s health body also said it is “still difficult to know” the global impact of omicron, or B.1.1.529, with the delta variant still dominant and limited data available on transmissibility, the danger of reinfection and severity of illness.

Pfizer/Biontech on 8 December said that a vaccine booster shot appears to provide strong protection against the omicron variant but that the initial two-dose vaccination may be insufficient, citing preliminary data.

Luxembourg has begun rolling out booster shots for all over 18s. Virologist Claude Muller this month urged people to and not wait for an omicron-specific vaccine to hit the market.

The third dose provides neutralising antibodies similar to those seen against the original coronavirus and other variants after two jabs, Pfizer/Biontech said. The initial two doses may still prevent severe disease, however. An omicron-specific vaccine could be ready by March 2022, it said.

Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca and other pharmaceutical companies are expected to released data on how their formulas hold up against omicron soon.

Could become dominant variant in Europe within months

The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control on 26 November said the omicron variant is characterised by 30 changes and the “most divergent variant that has been detected in significant numbers during the pandemic so far, which raises concerns that it may be associated with increased transmissibility, significant reduction in vaccine effectiveness and increased risk for reinfections.”

The ECDC has predicted that omicron could become the dominant variant in Europe within months. As of 12 December, it  766 confirmed cases in EU and EEA countries, which include Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway. All cases to date have been classified as asymptomatic or mild.

Still, the WHO has warned that if more people become infected, the number of people requiring hospital treatment will also inevitably increase, even if the omicron doesn’t cause more severe illness than the delta variant. The organisation in a on 10 December warned that more data is needed to assess the new variant’s severity profile.

A first case was on 6 December after a student with a registered address in Luxembourg but living in Belgium had tested positive. The student had not been to Luxembourg prior to the infection and authorities corrected the reporting mistake. 

The national laboratory, LNS, had said it would double the number of tests sampled per week to 2,000 to help identify variants. 

At leat one person has died in the UK after contracting the omicron variant, prime minister Boris Johnson said on Monday.