Compared with the global influenza epidemic in 2009, the Omicron variant of the COVID-19 virus will cause fewer cases of pneumonia and the rate of people becoming severely or critically ill after infection will be lower, a hospital executive in Beijing said on Friday.

Omicron, which has been spreading globally since the beginning of this year, is highly transmissible but less virulent. It normally only infects people's upper respiratory tract, Tong Zhaohui, vice-president of Beijing Chaoyang Hospital, said at a news conference held by the State Council's Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism.

In fact, there are considerably fewer severe and fatal cases caused by Omicron than those caused by the original and Delta variants, Tong said.

For example, since the start of the recent outbreak in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, more than 160,000 people have been infected, but only four deaths have been reported, Tong said.