By the end of this week, one in 10 people across the European Region will have had a Covid-19 infection, confirmed by laboratory testing, according to the head of the European office of the World Health Organization (WHO).
The number of new infections and deaths has more than doubled in the past two months, WHO Regional Director Hans Kluge told an online press conference broadcast on Tuesday. "The mortality would have been far worse without vaccination."
The WHO counts 53 countries in the European region, including not only the EU but also countries further east such as Russia, Ukraine and Turkey.
There have been nearly 90 million infections in the region and almost 1.6 million related deaths, according to WHO figures.
Kluge said the number of new cases was increasing in all age groups, with the highest numbers currently observed in the 5 to 14-year-old group.
There were 432 confirmed infections with the Omicron variant in a total of 21 states in the region by Monday, he said.
"Omicron is in sight and on the rise and we are right to be concerned and cautious," he said.
The Delta variant of the coronavirus is the current problem and continues to dominate, he said. "However we succeed against Delta today [and that] is a win over Omicron tomorrow."
"We are in the business of stabilizing a pandemic, and that means not one variant at a time but all variants, at once," Kluge said.
He called for vaccination rates to be increased, booster doses to be administered, more masks to be worn indoors and rooms ventilated.
At the same time, Kluge also said compulsory vaccination should only be an absolute last resort, once all feasible options to improve vaccination rates have been exhausted.
