The Omicron variant of COVID-19 is on track to infect more than half of Europeans, but it should not yet be seen as a flu-like endemic illness.

Axar.az reports citing foreign media that the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday.

Europe saw more than seven million newly-reported cases in the first week of 2022, more than doubling over a two-week period, WHO’s Europe director Hans Kluge told a news briefing.

“At this rate, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation forecasts that more than 50 per cent of the population in the region will be infected with Omicron in the next six-eight weeks,” Kluge said, referring to a research centre at the University of Washington.