The World Health Organization (WHO) predicts that the omicron variant could mean the end of the corona pandemic in Europe.

WHO's European director Hans Kluge says that as many as 60 percent of the population in European countries may have been infected with the omicron variant by March.

”It is likely that the region is moving towards a kind of endgame for the pandemic,” says Kluge.

The WHO predicts a kind of global immunity in a few weeks or months since the omicron variant has swept across the world, due to many people having been vaccinated or infected with the virus.

”We expect there will be a calm period before Covid-19 can come back towards the end of the year, but not necessarily as a pandemic,” he says.

The Omicron variant accounted for 15 percent of all confirmed cases in the WHO European Region on January 18, compared to just over 6 percent a week earlier. TT