Fifty out of 53 countries in Europe and central Asia have logged cases of the more infectious variant.
The COVID-19 Omicron variant is on track to infect more than half of Europeans but it should not yet be thought of as a flu-like endemic illness, the World Health Organization says.There were more than 7 million cases recorded across Europe in the first week of the year
"At this rate, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation forecasts that more than 50 per cent of the population in the region will be infected with Omicron in the next 6-8 weeks," Mr Kluge said, referring to a research centre at the University of Washington. However, evidence is emerging that Omicron is affecting the upper respiratory tract more than the lungs, causing milder symptoms than previous variants.On Monday, Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said it may be time to change how it tracks COVID-19's evolution to instead use a method similar to flu, because its lethality has fallen.
But that is "a way off" according to WHO's senior emergency officer for Europe, Catherine Smallwood, adding that endemicity requires a stable and predictable transmission.
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