Is it true that everyone will get Omicron? who answers

Responding to a question as to why people end up in hospital and dying from it when the Omicron variant is less severe, the WHO COVID-19 technical chief said, “People who are infected with Omicron have the full spectrum of disease , everything from asymptomatic infection all the way through to severe disease and death.”

“What we are learning is that people with underlying conditions, people of advanced age, people who are unvaccinated, can have a severe form of COVID-19 after infection with Omicron,” Kerkhov said.

Asked if everyone might eventually get Omicron, Kerkhov said, “Omicron is overtaking Delta in terms of circulation, and it circulates between people very efficiently.”

However, that said, that doesn’t mean everyone will eventually get Omicron. “We are definitely seeing high cases and growth of cases across the globe,” said the apex health body’s Covid-19 technical leadership.

Emphasizing on vaccination against Covid-19, she said, “It is against serious illness and death, but it also prevents some infections and some further transmission.”

Earlier, Anthony Fauci said that the US is approaching the “threshold” of infection to live with coronavirus as a manageable disease.

The top US scientist said ending COVID-19 was unrealistic and that “Omicron, with its extraordinary, unprecedented ability to power, will eventually find just about everyone.”

“There’s no way we’re going to eradicate this” virus, he said, given its infectivity, its tendency to mutate into new forms and the large pool of unvaccinated people.

Covid pandemic ‘nowhere to end’

Meanwhile, the head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said the pandemic was not over. “This pandemic is not over,” Tedros told reporters from the WHO’s headquarters in Geneva.

The head of the UN health agency warned against lightly dismissing Omicron, which has spread like wildfire around the world since it was first detected in southern Africa in November.

The Omicron version of COVID-19 is much more contagious than previous strains, but appears to cause less severe disease.

This has sparked debate over whether the virus is on the verge of becoming a pandemic and becoming an endemic disease humanity can live with – with the implication that the threat will be averted.

But the WHO has warned that the sheer number of infected people will mean many people are still falling seriously ill and dying.