The UK may be on the brink of beating the COVID-19 pandemic, with daily deaths currently running at less than half the rate expected in a bad flu year, the media reported. According to Professor Paul Hunter, an infectious disease expert from the University of East Anglia, the COVID pandemic will become 'endemic' after the Omicron wave subsides in the country, provided no other variants emerge, Daily Mail reported. "Once we're past this Omicron peak, excluding another unexpected variant that reverses all of our progress, then we'll be close to the point of endemic," he was quoted as saying. While infection rates more than quadrupled since September following the emergence of the ultra-transmissible variant, daily deaths have barely changed during the same period. The figures showed that the burden of COVID is now comparable to flu, Hunter said.

Source: dna January 11, 2022 13:12 UTC