Coronavirus tally: WHO Europe head says omicron has moved pandemic into new phase that could spell the end in that region
The highly contagious omicron variant of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 has moved the pandemic into a new phase that could spell an end to it in Europe, the World Health Organization regional head told AFP. Once the current surge of Omicron currently sweeping across Europe subsides, "there will be for quite some weeks and months a global immunity, either thanks to the vaccine or because people have immunity due to the infection, and also lowering seasonality," Hans Kluge told the agency in an interview. He cautioned that the "virus has surprised us more than once," and said omicron could infect 60% of Europeans by March. U.S. is averaging more than 2,000 COVID-19 deaths a day, according to a New York Times tracker, But U.S. new cases are averaging less than 700,000 a day, up 2% from two weeks ago, as cases have peaked in northeastern states that were among the first to be hit hard and are starting to come down elsewhere too. On a global basis, the total tally for COVID-19 cases hiked up above 351.7 million and the death toll rose above 5.59 million, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University. The U.S. leads the world with a total COVID-19 case count of 70.7 million and death toll of 866,540.
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