The clarification comes as a result of official reports that specialists are considering suspending the use of facemasks in outdoors public places, given the significant drop in all states of the country, including Mexico City, in the number of contagions and hospitalizations due to Covid-19.

However, they warned that a recombination of Covid-19 called Deltracron, a term rejected by the World Health Organization (WHO), could happen if health measures such as the use of facemasks are relaxed.

The Secretariat explained that the decision to suspend the use of facemasks in these areas is not a personal decision, but a collegiate one, and therefore this possibility is being studied for outdoors areas.

For its part, the WHO insists on disqualifying Deltacron as it does not really exist, although a coinfection of both variants can occur, as happens, for example, with SARS-CoV-2 and influenza viruses in the same patient.

The symptoms of the Omicron and Delta variants are different, since while the latter replicates in the lower respiratory tract and reaches the lungs, Omicron stays in the upper system.

“This combination of factors has allowed the virus to spread more easily,” Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO’s lead specialist for the Covid-19 pandemic, noted.

With the Omicron variant, she added, what we have learned is that the risk of developing severe disease is lower than with the Delta variant.

She explained that using the term Deltacron means admitting a combination of viruses and variants, which is not occurring and should not be confused with the coexistence of both variants in the same patient.

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