The World Health Organization said on Tuesday that more than half of Europe is expected to be infected with the Omicron variant of Covid-19 in the next two months, according to greekreporter.com.
Regional director Hans Kluge announced at a press conference that Omicron is a “new west-to-east tidal wave sweeping across” Europe, and if infections hold their pace, over half of Europe will be infected within two months.
“At this rate, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME0) forecasts that more than 50% of the population in the region will be infected with Omicron in the next six to eight weeks,” Kluge explained to the media.
The WHO includes 53 countries and territories in its categorization of Europe. Kluge explained on Tuesday that 50 of these 53 areas have confirmed cases of Omicron.
The WHO notes that 26 of those countries and territories had reported that more than 1% of their populations were “catching COVID-19 each week.” The European region has had more than seven million new infections in the first week of 2022.
Kluge told reporters that data confirms that omicron is more transmissible and “the mutations have enabled it to adhere to human cells more easily, and it can infect even those who have been previously infected or vaccinated.”
He added that “approved vaccines do continue to provide good protection against severe disease and death, including for Omicron.”
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