Dr. Hans Henri P. Kluge, WHO Regional Director for Europe

According to the WHO Europe Director, Hans Kluge, the Omicron variant could bring the pandemic to an end in Europe.

"It's plausible that the region is moving towards a kind of pandemic endgame," Kluge told AFP in an interview, adding that 60% of Europeans could catch the variant by March.

As the Omicron variant sweeps across Europe, "there will be for quite some weeks and months a global immunity, either thanks to the vaccine or because people have immunity due to the infection, and also lowering seasonality".

"We anticipate that there will be a period of quiet before COVID-19 may come back towards the end of the year, but not necessarily the pandemic coming back," Kluge said.

Similar hope was shared by top US scientist Anthony Fauci, who told ABC News talk show "This Week" that "things are looking good" with COVID-19 cases decreasing "rather sharply" in areas of the United States.

However, he cautioned against overconfidence, just as Kluge considered that it was still too early to think of an endemic.

"There is a lot of talk about endemic but endemic means ... that it is possible to predict what's going to happen. This virus has surprised (us) more than once so we have to be very careful," Kluge noted.

The WHO Regional Office for Africa recently said as well that COVID cases had decreased in that region and deaths have declined for the first time since the fourth wave of the virus reached its maximum.

The Omicron variant, which according to studies is more contagious than the Delta variant but leads to less severe infection among those vaccinated, has raised much-awaited hopes that COVID-19 is beginning to move from a pandemic to a manageable endemic illness like seasonal flu.