End of pandemic in Europe ‘plausible’ after Omicron, says WHO

Regional director cautions that despite hopes variant will make COVID-19 a more manageable endemic illness, pathogen can still mutate

By AFP 23 January 2022, 7:48 pm

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A woman receives a COVID-19 vaccine at a drive-thru NHS vaccination center in Blackburn, north-west England, on January 17, 2022, as the Omicron coronavirus variant spreads in the country. (Paul Ellis/AFP)

COPENHAGEN, Denmark — 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.

Once the current surge of Omicron currently sweeping across Europe subsides, “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 lowering seasonality.”

“So 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 than the Delta variant did, at least among vaccinated people, has raised long-awaited hopes that COVID-19 is starting to shift from a pandemic to a more manageable endemic illness like seasonal flu.

World Health Organization Director for Europe Hans Kluge arrives for a press conference in Rome, Italy, February 26, 2020. (Gregorio Borgia/AP)

“There is a lot of talk about endemic, but endemic means… that it is possible to predict what’s going to happen. This virus has surprised (us) more than once so we have to be very careful,” Kluge said.

In the WHO Europe region, which is made up of 53 countries, including several in Central Asia, Omicron represented 15 percent of new cases as of January 18, compared to 6.3% a week earlier, the health body said.