Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: In a grim warning, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday that over half the population of Western Europe could get infected with the Omicron virus of Covid-19 in the next eight weeks.
In the first week of January, Europe recorded over seven million fresh cases of the highly contagious strain whose numbers doubled in just two weeks, the global health agency said.
WHO’s Europe Director Dr. Hans Kluge told media persons that 26 countries in its region reported that over 1 percent of their populations are infected with Covid-19 each week, and warned the countries to prevent their health systems from being overwhelmed at the earliest.
He also cited estimates from the Institute of Health Metrics at the University of Washington that projected half of the population in Western Europe will be infected with the pandemic virus in the next six to eight weeks.
Highly contagious, Omicron moves faster and wider than any preceding Covid-19 variant, Dr. Kluge said, as he urged countries to mandate the use of masks even indoors and to prioritize vaccination and booster doses, of at-risk populations, including health workers and older people.
Earlier, WHO’s Geneva headquarters had urged rich countries not to offer booster doses and to donate them instead to poorer countries where vulnerable groups have yet to be immunized.
He said he was greatly concerned that as Omicron moved eastward across the European continent, it will take a much higher toll on countries with lower vaccination coverage rates. In Denmark, he noted the coronavirus hospitalization rate was six times higher in unvaccinated people compared to those immunized.