Sounding a dire warning, the World Health Organization has said that more than half the Europe’s population will be infected with the Omicron variant of coronavirus in the next two months.
Speaking at a Press conference, WHO’s Europe Director Hans Kluge said the region had recorded more than 7 million new cases in the first week of 2022. He said more than 1 per cent of the population was catching Covid-19 each week in 26 countries.
Kluge said the variant had been reported in 50 of the Europe region’s 53 States and was becoming dominant in Western Europe. He said that at this rate, more than 50 per cent of the population in the region will be infected with Omicron in the next six to eight weeks.
“At this rate, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) forecasts that more than 50 per cent of the population in the region will be infected with Omicron in the next six to eight weeks,” Kluge told reporters.
According to the WHO, 26 of those countries reported that over one per cent of their populations were “catching Covid-19 each week” as of January 10, and that the region had seen over seven million new virus cases reported in the first week of 2022 alone.
Referencing data collected over the last few weeks, Kluge said the variant was confirmed to be more transmissible and “the mutations it has enable it to adhere to human cells more easily, and it can infect even those who have been previously infected or vaccinated.”
However, Kluge also stressed that “approved vaccines do continue to provide good protection against severe disease and death, including for Omicron.”