Medical experts have observed some clues indicating that the onslaught of the highly-transmissible omicron variant of COVID-19 may have reached its peak in the United Kingdom and soon in the United States, which will result in a significant dropping of cases.
After infecting millions since its emergence in South Africa in late 2021, omicron may already be running out of people to infect in the UK and the US, scientists explain as reported by the Associated Press.
Health metrics professor Ali Mokdad of the University of Washington in Seattle predicts that omicron is "going to come down" at the same rate it went up.
Despite the optimistic outlook, experts still caution the public that the next phase of the global pandemic is still not clear, and the health crisis will still go on. Moreover, the plateauing of omicron numbers in the UK and the US will not happen in other countries at the same time or the same place.
Read also: COVID-19 Around the World: How Different Countries Are Dealing With Omicron Surge in January 2022
UK Still Not Okay
It is still expected that more people will get infected and health care systems will be overwhelmed in the coming days.
The University of Texas COVID-19 Modeling Consortium predicted that COVID-19 cases will peek within the week. Its director, Lauren Ancel Meyers, said that a lot of people will get infected as the US goes down "the slope on the backslide".
Meanwhile, Dr. David Heymann, former head of the infectious diseases of the World Health Organization, said that as COVID-19 is gradually becoming endemic, Britain becomes "the closest to any country being out of the pandemic," as per ABC.
However in Britain's older population and the tendency of its residents to stay indoors more during the winter season could lead to a more difficult outbreak, which can also happen to other countries that share the same characteristic.
In the past week, the World Health Organization reported 7 million new COVID-19 infections across Europe. It predicted that half of the continent's population will get infected with omicron within eight weeks, based on the modeling for Mokdad and his companions.
Prepare For Continued Surge in Cases
Still, there is no room for complacency as reported COVID-19 numbers still reflect overwhelmed medical facilities and health workers. "The next few weeks are going to be brutal because, in absolute numbers, there are so many people being infected that it will spill over into ICUs," said Dr. Prabhat Jha of the Centre for Global Health Research at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto, as per CNN.
Mokdad sent the same warning that the US is facing "a tough two or three weeks." As the infections continue, it will be crucial to let "certain essential workers" carry on their duties despite the risk of them spreading the disease.
Meyers foretells that omicron could be seen someday as a "turning point" in the pandemic due to the immunity gained from infections, newly drugs developed, and continued vaccination that made humanity survive and go on along with the virus.
"At some point, we'll be able to draw a line - and omicron may be that point - where we transition from what is a catastrophic global threat to something that's a much more manageable disease," said Meyers.
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