Copenhagen, Jan 11, (dpa/GNA) – The World Health Organization (WHO) warned that half of the people living in Europe, could catch the new and more transmissible Omicron strain of the coronavirus in the next two months, in a projection released on Tuesday.
Omicron represents a tidal wave sweeping across the European region from west to east, adding to the surge of cases of the Delta strain seen by countries in late 2021, WHO Regional Director Hans Kluge told an online press conference.
Omicron is fast becoming the dominant variant in western Europe, and is now spreading to the Balkans, Kluge said.
More than 50 per cent of the region’s population could be infected within the next six to eight weeks, given the current pace at which the variant is spreading, according to the IHME research institute based on model calculations.
Modelling for the European Region suggests that a peak of more than 12 million infections per day would be reached by mid-January, although nation by nation, these peaks are expected to vary considerably, with later peaks in Central Asia, the institute said in a report two days ago.
There have been more than 7 million new cases of the Omicron strain in the first week of 2022 alone in the European region, more than doubling in a two-week period, Kluge said.
GNA