WHO's incident manager Dr Abdirahman Mahamud said that everyone was saying Omicron COVID-19 variant is milder but "half a million people have died since this was detected". "In the age of effective vaccines, half a million people dying, it's really something...It's beyond tragic," he added. Omicron makes "previous peaks look almost flat", Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO's COVID-19 Technical Lead, said.