Omicron has probably become dominant coronavirus variant in Lithuania

VILNIUS – Preliminary tests suggest that Omicron has already become the dominant variant of COVID-19 in Lithuania, according to the country's statistics office and the National Public Health Laboratory (NPHL).

"Omicron has spread very rapidly in Lithuania and is already the dominant strain," Statistics Lithuania posted on Facebook on Wednesday.

"Currently, the Omicron variant is suspected to be present in almost all samples with a positive PCR result that are tested using the [...] qPCR method that provisionally detects the strain of the virus," it said. 

Based on the preliminary method, the prevalence of the new variant "was probably less than 10 percent during the Christmas period and is now likely to be above 90 percent", according to the office.  

The data have yet to confirmed by sequencing tests which take at least two weeks or so, it noted. 

Lukas Zemaitis of the NPHL also said that Omicron has probably become the dominant variant. 

"Given that Omicron doubles in a matter of days, it is likely that when we do the sequencing, these figures will prove to be correct," he told BNS.