EU agency says omicron pushing COVID-19 out of pandemic phase
This is good news I hope. Covid seems to have followed the pattern of the 1918 Spanish Flu.
"We have nothing to fear but fear itself." (Franklin D. Roosevelt 1933)
https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/589320-eu-regulator-questions-need-for-fourth-covid-19-vaccine-dose
PBS: Look at the parallels between Covid and the 1918 Spanish Flu.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/influenza/
An official from Europe's top medical product regulation agency said Tuesday that the COVID-19 omicron variant may be pushing the pandemic into becoming endemic.
Marco Cavaleri, head of vaccine strategy for the European Medicines Agency (EMA), told reporters on Tuesday that that the natural immunity conferred by the highly infectious omicron strain may be fast-tracking the progress towards endemicity.
“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,” Cavaleri said during a media briefing, according to Al Jazeera.
When a virus becomes endemic it means a population has gained enough widespread immunity — either from infection or vaccination — that transmissions, hospitalizations and deaths will start to go down.
Reports from South Africa, where omicron was first detected, have indicated that while the variant is highly infectious, it does not result in a corresponding spike in hospitalizations and deaths. Another South African study released last month found that omicron may reduce infections caused by the delta variant by building cross-immunity to different strains, an effect that has not been observed in many other mutations of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
