Copenhagen: Omicron variant has moved the Covid-19 pandemic into a new phase and can publish it in Europe, said European Director Sunday.
“It really makes sense that this area moves towards a kind of endgame pandemic,” said Hanss Kluge told AFP in an interview, adding that Omicron could infect 60 percent of Europeans in March.
So the surge in omicron is currently sweeping Europe to subside, “there will be for several weeks and months of global immunity, both thanks to vaccines or because people have immunity because of infection, and also reduce the season”.
“We anticipate that there will be a calm period before Covid-19 can return towards the end of the year, but it doesn’t have to go back,” Kluge said.
US Top Anthony Fauci scientists revealed similar optimism on Sunday, told the ABC News Talk Show “this week” which with the Covid-19 case down “rather sharp” in some parts of the United States, “everything looks good”.
While warning more of self-confidence, he said that if a recent decline in a certain amount in areas such as the Northeast of the US continued, “I believe that you will begin to see the rotation throughout the country”.
The WHO Regional Office for Africa also said last week that Covid cases plunged in the region and death declined for the first time since the fourth wave which was dominated by Omicron from the virus reached its peak.
– Focusing on minimizing omicron’s interference, the research displayed is more transmitted than Delta but generally leads to less severe infections among people who are vaccinated, have gathered hopes that have long been waiting for that Covid-19 began to shift from a pandemic More endemic diseases can be managed such as seasonal flu.
But Kluge warns that it is still too early to consider Endemic Covid-19.
“There is a lot of conversation about endemic but endemic means that it is possible to predict what will happen.
This virus has surprised us more than once so we must be very careful,” Kluge said.
With Omicron spread so widely, other variants can still appear, he warns.
The European Commissioner for the internal market, Thierry Breton, the Brief, including vaccine production, said the week that it would be possible to adapt existing vaccines for each new variant that might appear.
“We will be able to oppose better, including to the new variant”, he told LCI French television.
“We will be ready to adjust the vaccine, especially the MRNA, if necessary to adjust it to a more malignant variant”.
In the WHO Europe area, consisting of 53 countries including several in Central Asia, Omicron represents 15 percent of new cases on January 18, compared to 6.3 percent a week before, the health body said.
– Focusing on minimizing disorders – Omicron is now the dominant variant in the European Union and the European Economy (EEA, or Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein), the EU ECDC health agency said last week.
Because of the spread of a very rapid variant throughout Europe, Kluge said the emphasis must be on “minimizing hospital disorders, schools and economics, and gave great efforts to protect vulnerable”, rather than steps to stop transmissions.
He temporarily urged people to carry out personal responsibilities.
“If you feel unwell, stay home, test yourself.
If you are positive, isolation”, he said.
Kluge said the priority was stabilizing the situation in Europe, where the level of vaccination crossed countries from 25 to 95 percent of the population, which led to various levels of tensions in hospitals and health care systems.
“Stabilization means that the health system is no longer overwhelmed because Covid-19 and can continue with essential health services, which unfortunately truly disturbed for cancer, cardiovascular disease, and routine immunization”.
Asked whether the fourth dose will be needed to end the pandemic, Kluge be careful, say only that “we know that immunity jumps after every shot of vaccine”.
This pandemic has so far killed nearly 5.6 million people worldwide, according to official figures compiled by AFP, 1.7 million of them in Europe.