A top scientist with the World Health Organization (WHO) said the new Omicron COVID-19 variant could displace the Delta variant that emerged earlier this year, while researchers recently announced Omicron may have picked up genetic material from the common cold. The WHO’s Soumya Swaminathan said that it’s not yet clear whether Omicron is milder than other CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus variants, including Delta, while casting doubt on whether it emerged in southern Africa. “It is possible that it could become [the] dominant variant,” Swaminathan said during a Reuters event published over the weekend, adding that it’s impossible for scientists to make that prediction. The Delta variant, she said, accounts for 99 percent of COVID-19 cases around the world. Despite that, Swaminathan said Omicron—named as such by the WHO more than a week ago—is “highly transmissible” based on preliminary data from southern Africa. The WHO courted controversy for naming the variant …