The WHO considers the end of the pandemic in Europe to be “plausible” when the omicron wave subsides

Health professionals attend to a patient with covid in a hospital in Cremona (Italy). MIGUEL MEDINA (AFP)

The World Health Organization (WHO) considers that the omicron variant of the coronavirus, from which it estimates that 60% of Europeans can be infected before next March, has given way to a new phase of the pandemic in Europe and could hasten its end. “It is plausible that the region is approaching the end of the pandemic,” Hans Kluge, the WHO regional director for Europe, said on Sunday, although he also urged caution given the versatility of the virus. “Once the omicron wave subsides, there will be a general immunity for a few weeks and a few months, either because of the vaccine or because people will be immune due to the infection, and also a decrease due to seasonality”, Kluge has defended. .The WHO then expects "a period of calm before perhaps the return of covid-19 towards the end of the year [with the return of cold and winter], but not necessarily the return of the pandemic."

One day after Kluge's words, the director general of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, stated this Monday that covid-19 will not disappear in the short term and that the world will continue to live with it. Tedros Adhanom has assured that "learning to live with this disease does not mean giving it total freedom". "We are going to live with covid-19 in the near future, and we need to learn to manage it with sustained and integrated systems to combat acute respiratory diseases," Tedros stressed at the opening of the WHO Executive Committee, which this week celebrates his 150th session. However, he clarified, "learning to live with covid does not mean giving it total freedom, it cannot mean that we accept the current 50,000 weekly deaths for a disease that is predictable and treatable."

Tedros has also called for "the consequences of 'persistent covid', which are not yet fully understood, not to be ignored", referring to the many people who, even after recovering from the disease, manifest multiple health problems. The head of the WHO has stated: "We can end the acute phase of the pandemic this year, we can end covid-19 as a global health emergency", the highest alert level of the WHO. However, the person in charge has warned that it is "dangerous to assume that ómicron will be the last variant", because the conditions are "ideal" in the world for other variants to emerge, even more transmissible and virulent ones. “The conditions are optimal for new variants to emerge”, due to the record numbers of infections,that on January 20 were the highest in more than two years of the pandemic, with almost four million global positives in a single day.

Ómicron, detected for the first time by scientists in South Africa in mid-November, caused a rise in infections in the world in the last weeks of 2021 that led many European states to apply restrictions at Christmas due to the explosion of this variant of the coronavirus. . In Spain, for example, records of daily infections were broken, the incidence exceeded 3,400 cases per 100,000 inhabitants within 14 days and the intensive care units, the best indicator to measure the severity of the virus, reached their structural limit, although occupancy has already begun to decline and is far from the pressure levels of the worst moments.

In Europe, which according to WHO data registered 1.6 million new cases of coronavirus on January 19 - the maximum recorded in the entire pandemic - several European states have begun to relax the restrictions they imposed at Christmas due to the rise of omicron This decision is due to the fact that the incidence has fallen in several countries, because the vaccines are limiting admissions to hospitals or because of a change in strategy. The only measure imposed at the national level in Spain at Christmas is still in force, that is, the return of the obligation to wear a mask outdoors. However, several autonomies are also relaxing their restrictions, such as Catalonia, which has eliminated the curfew.

In Spain, in line with the statements by Kluge and Tedros, the Health technicians, the communities and the National Epidemiology Center are finalizing a pilot plan to monitor covid, as has been done for years with the flu, with a network of doctors sentinels that serve as witnesses to know how the virus progresses and that would be applied after the sixth wave of the disease.

In this scenario, tests would not be carried out on each case, but a significant sample would be sought to extrapolate the data.

This means that with a massively vaccinated population and with apparently milder variants, the Government wants a new covid surveillance system.