The Omicron variant has moved the Covid-19 pandemic into a new phase and could bring it to an end in Europe, the WHO Europe director said Sunday.
“It’s plausible that the region is moving towards a kind of pandemic endgame,” Hans Kluge told AFP in an interview, adding that Omicron could infect 60 percent of Europeans by March.
“It’s plausible that the region is moving towards a kind of pandemic endgame,” AFP quoted Kluge as saying.
Once the current Omicron surge is over, Kluge said “there will be for quite some weeks and months a global immunity, either thanks to the vaccine or because people have immunity due to the infection, and also lower seasonality”.
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“We anticipate that there will be a period of quiet before Covid-19 may come back towards the end of the year, but not necessarily the pandemic coming back,” Kluge said.
The Omicron variant, which studies have shown generally leads to less severe infection among vaccinated people than Delta, has raised long-awaited hopes that Covid-19 is starting to shift from a pandemic to a more manageable endemic illness like seasonal flu.
The WHO official’s comments instill some hope for Europe, currently reeling under the highly transmissible Omicron-led wave, but also has a message for the rest of the world.
In the WHO Europe region, which comprises 53 countries including several in Central Asia, Omicron represented 15 per cent of new cases as of January 18, compared to 6.3 percent a week earlier, the global health body said.
(With inputs from AFP)