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The Omicron variant of the COVID-19 virus (SARS-CoV-2) was first discovered in South Africa in November 2021. On 26 November, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that Omicron was a “Variant of Concern”. Having over 50 mutations on the virus, this variant is expected to spread faster than any of the previous variants. In the subsequent weeks, USA and a few European countries started to report local transmission of Omicron and introduced international travel restriction.

By March 2022, four months after the emergence of Omicron, the variant has spread swiftly throughout the world. More countries have detected Omicron cases, and the variant has evolved from a single BA.1 strain to a family comprising BA.2 which has an even higher transmission efficiency. Omicron has become the dominant SARS-CoV-2 strain in most countries, as illustrated in dark orange or brown colour (indicating that it accounted for >80% of all cases) in the map.

From 10 Jan to 8 Mar 2022, many countries have reported over 1 million COVID-19 cases (labelled in purple circle with star). Despite the consistently high number of reported COVID-19 cases worldwide, vaccination remains to be effective in reducing severe symptoms of the disease and slowing transmission. As protective antibody level would decrease with time, receiving a booster shot is an important prevention strategy.

Data for map were from Our World In Data (OWID).

2021年11月南非首次發現新冠病毒變異病毒株Omicron，隨後世界衛生組織於 11 月26日宣布Omicron 為「需要關注病毒株」。Omicron有超過50 個突變，估計它的傳播速度比以往的任何變異病毒株都快。在接著的數週內，美國和一些歐洲國家開始陸續發現Omicron本土傳播個案，並相繼嚴格限制出入境措施。

2022年3月，在 Omicron 出現四個月後的今天，該病毒已在全球迅速傳播。Omicron亦從一個早期的單病毒株BA.1，逐漸演變成了一個病毒家族，當中的BA.2傳播效率更高。全球越來越多國家發現了 Omicron 感染個案， 並且成為主要病毒株。這些地方在地圖上以深橙色或棕色標示(超過80%個案為Omicron個案)。

自2022年1月10日至3月8日，很多國家的新冠病毒累計報告個案超越100萬宗 (地圖上以有星星的紫色圓圈標示)。儘管各國的報告病例數量一直居高不下，但疫苗接種仍然是能有效減輕重症並減緩傳播速度的有效方法。由於有保護性的抗體水平會隨著時間下降，因此注射加強劑成為重要防控策略。

地圖資料源自Our World In Data (OWID) 。