Half of Europe on track to catch Omicron

Half of Europe on track to catch Omicron

COPENHAGEN: More than half of people in Europe are projected to catch Omicron by March, the WHO said yesterday, as millions in China locked down again exactly two years after Beijing reported the first COVID-19 death. The highly-transmissible variant has ripped through countries at breakneck pace, forcing governments to impose fresh measures and scramble to roll out vaccine booster shots.

Europe is at the epicenter of alarming new outbreaks alongside mounting hospital admissions and deaths while the World Health Organization said Tuesday Omicron could infect half of all people in the region at current rates. “The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) forecasts that more than 50 percent of the population in the region will be infected with Omicron in the next six to eight weeks,” said Hans Kluge, regional director for WHO’s European office.

The WHO’s European region covers 53 countries and territories including several in Central Asia, and Kluge said 50 of them had Omicron cases. Kluge confirmed that Omicron is more transmissible than previous variants, but stressed “approved vaccines do continue to provide good protection against severe disease and death — including for Omicron”.

The warning came exactly two years after the announcement of the first person dying of