Denmark health chief: Omicron is bringing about the END of the pandemic and ‘we will have our normal lives back in two months’
A Danish health chief has said the Covid-19 Omicron variant is bringing about the end of the pandemic, saying ‘we will have our normal lives back in two months’.
Speaking to Danish TV 2, Tyra Grove Krause – the chief epidemiologist at Denmark’s State Serum Institute – said a new study from the organisation found that the risk of hospitalisation from Omicron is half that seen with the Delta variant.
This, she said, has given Danish authorities hope that the Covid-19 pandemic in Denmark could be over in two months.
Despite early fears that Omicron could prolong the pandemic due to its increased level of infection, Ms Krause said it actually could spell the end of the pandemic.
According to the study: ‘Omicron is here to stay, and it will provide some massive spread of infection in the coming month. When it’s over, we’re in a better place than we were before.’
But while infection numbers in countries with the variant are soaring, the expert said that the highly infectious Omicron appears milder than the Delta variant, and therefore more people will be infected without having serious symptoms.
As a result, she said, this will provide a good level of immunity in the population.
Denmark has seen a spike in new cases in recent weeks, and on Sunday recorded its highest ever seven-day average infections, recording an average of 20,886 across the previous week, or 3,592.74 per million people – one of Europe’s highest rates.