European Medicines Agency chief says increase of immunity will accelerate shift, as WHO says half of Europe could get infected by March.
Hello. Welcome to Al Jazeera’s COVID-19 live blog. I’m Ted Regencia and will be updating you over the next few hours on the latest developments in the pandemic. The European Medicines Agency, the region’s drug regulator, says the spread of the Omicron coronavirus variant across the continent is pushing COVID-19 towards being an endemic disease that humanity can live with.
“With the increase of immunity in population – and with Omicron, there will be a lot of natural immunity taking place on top of vaccination – we will be fast moving towards a scenario that will be closer to endemicity,” Marco Cavaleri, head of vaccine strategy at the Amsterdam-based regulator, told journalists on Tuesday.
Other major developments:
The United Kingdom’s Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi told Sky News that the UK government is hopeful the country will be among the first in the world to “transition” from pandemic to endemic.
The World Health Organization (WHO) predicts more than half of the people in Europe could catch Omicron by March.
The WHO has also said that repeating boosters is not a good strategy against emerging variants of the virus, ..
Source: dawn.com
