Is Omicron the end for the pandemic?

Top officials at the World Health Organization are expressing conflicting views this week on the likelihood that the Omicron variant's dominance might signal an end of the coronavirus pandemic.

WHO's director-general on Monday cautioned against assuming the pandemic was approaching an "endgame" and said it's "dangerous" to think Omicron would be the last variant.

His warning came with health experts and pundits raising hopes the more contagious yet apparently milder Omicron variant could signal the final stretch of the pandemic's acute period.

The day before, WHO's regional director for Europe, Hans Kluge, told Agence France-Presse that "it's plausible that the region is moving towards a kind of pandemic endgame."

Omicron, which is thought to induce less severe sickness than the Delta variant but can still lead to hospitalization and death, is now the dominant strain of the virus in most European nations.

The variant, which studies have shown generally leads to less severe infection than the Delta variant did, at least among vaccinated people, has raised long-awaited hopes that COVID-19 is starting to shift from a pandemic to a more manageable endemic illness like seasonal flu.