Copenhagen:
Two years after the Covid-19 outbreak, Europe could soon enter a “long period of rest” due to the high vaccination coverage, the milder Omicron variant and the end of winter, the WHO said on Thursday.
“This period of higher protection should be seen as a ceasefire that can bring us lasting peace,” WHO Europe director Hans Kluge told reporters.
“This context, which we have not experienced so far in this pandemic, gives us the opportunity for a long period of calm,” he added.
Europe would also be better able to fend off any resurgence in transmission, “even with a more virulent variant” than Omicron, he added.
“I believe it’s possible to respond to new variants that will inevitably emerge — without reinstalling the kind of disruptive measures we needed before,” Kluge said.
However, he warned that the optimistic scenario would only hold if countries continued their vaccination campaigns and intensified surveillance to detect new variants.
He also urged health authorities to protect at-risk groups and promote individual accountability.
With the more contagious Omicron variant in circulation, infections have skyrocketed in the WHO’s European region, which includes 53 countries, including some in Central Asia.
Some 12 million new cases were registered in the region last week, according to the WHO, the highest level since the start of the pandemic.
(This story was not edited by DailyExpertNews staff and was generated automatically from a syndicated feed.)