A top health official said on Monday that the spread of the Omicron variant could help set the stage for the Pandemic to transition from overwhelming to manageable in Europe this year.
There was a hint of hope, but it came with a heavy dose of caution because the world is vulnerable to surge that could strain health systems. In the United States, where vaccination rates are lower and death rates are higher than in Western Europe, there are bigger hurdles to overcome.
Dr. Hans Kluge, the director for the World Health Organization's European region, warned in a statement that it was too early for nations to drop their guard, with so many people unvaccinated around the world. He said that Omicron offers hope for stabilization and normalization between vaccination and natural immunity.
The question remains, however, is what a new normal looks like, and how long it will last.
Scientists said that the Omicron variant will leave behind higher levels of immunity. It's not clear if the world will have to endure deadly and disruptive future surges of the virus before the epidemic is over.
While Dr. Kluge believed Europe could survive new waves without resorting to lockdowns, other countries are still trying to figure out what other measures to use. Scientists said that new pills are more readily available in Europe than in other parts of the world.
Testing and isolating would remain essential according to experts. Short-term mask mandates could be used to help hospitals deal with respiratory illnesses if coronaviruses increase in the coming winters.
The head of the W.H.O. said on Monday that the emergency phase of the Pandemic was still here.
Dr. Tedros said at the meeting that it was dangerous to assume that Omicron would be the last variant. The conditions are ideal for more variations to emerge.
Over the past two years, people around the world have become familiar with the wicked way the virus evolved. With the Delta variant waning, there were predictions of a return to normal, only for the world to be caught off guard by Omicron.
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The director general of the World Health Organization warned against assuming the end of the Pandemic was near.
No previous variant has spread as quickly as Omicron, with reports of coronaviruses cases rocketing from about 600,000 a day worldwide in early December to more than three million a day now. Case numbers are thought to be an undercount due to issues with access to testing and the use of at- home tests that may not be officially reported.
In places where Omicron is just gaining a foothold, the known number of new infections is staggering.
Germany's health minister said that he expected infections to peak in February with 600,000 new cases per day. Many countries with low vaccination rates are now seeing Omicron spread.
There are steep challenges for countries that have pursued a zero- Covid policy.
The Omicron surge has left some public health officials cautiously optimistic about how quickly countries can emerge from the latest wave. The rise in cases in places overrun by Omicron has often been followed by a decline.
Thomas Frieden, a former chief of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said on Monday that increased vaccinations and infections are bolstering our defenses against Covid. I am more optimistic about our ability to tame the epidemic than at any point since it emerged.
He added that a worse variant would be as deadly as Delta.
In the United States, Omicron cases appear to have crested in the Northeast, parts of the Upper Midwest and other areas where it first arrived, while nationally, new cases and hospital admissions have leveled off in recent days.
In Mississippi, where nearly all of the state's acute-care hospitals have been pushed to capacity, hospitals in other areas across the country remain overstretched, straining to handle patients after multiple surge and staffing shortages. New deaths are high.
In the United States, 37 percent of people are not fully vaccine free, compared with 25 percent in Western Europe. Half of Western Europeans have had a booster shot, compared to three-quarters of the U.S. population.
The head of the global public health program at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland said that the United States is in a more dangerous position than Europe because of the number and concentration of unvaccinated people.
We have the tools to manage it in these countries, as I think of it as the beginning of the end. We need to shift from an emergency crisis to a sustainable one.
Europe offers hints of what could happen with the coronaviruses, with England in the midst of lifting almost all remaining restrictions and Spain's prime minister telling citizens to "learn to live" with the virus.
She said that many countries are looking at us to see what the next stage looks like. Can we find a way to manage this as we head into spring and summer, or are we in for another surprise?
Some public health experts have encouraged less focus on cases and more emphasis on hospitalizations as research shows that Omicron causes less severe disease and vaccines remain protective against the worst outcomes.
Scientists warn that the protection offered by a previous infection may not apply to future versions of the virus. Delta offered minimal protection against Omicron.
Scientists said new fast-spreading variant will most likely emerge. There is no reason to believe that they will be milder.
Scientists believe that the coronaviruses will eventually become endemic and start circulating at more predictable levels. How serious a threat it poses at that stage will depend on how well countries handle illness and how hospitals cope with it.
Scientists say that the stage of the Pandemic appears to be way off.
Scientists said that the virus will face more pressure to evolve in ways that allow it to be passed on to people with a measure of immunity. Predicting the next variant may be more difficult than predicting Omicron.
The next variant will come out of the left field, said Jeremy Kamil, a Shreveport virologist. He said it would be foolish to speak with excessive certainty about what is coming in the next two years.
Dr. Kluge said that Europe was in a better place to deal with what might come. Two years after the first confirmed coronaviruses case in Europe, he offered a mix of caution and optimism and urged people to pay attention to other urgent health issues.
Dr. Kluge said he was hopeful that the emergency phase could be ended in 2022. There are growing waiting lists, essential health services have been disrupted, and plans for climate-related health stresses and shocks have been put on hold.
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