The appearance of this variant has greatly increased the spread of coronavirus infection. It is estimated that in mid-January 2022, there were 125 million omicron infections in the world per day, which is 10 times more infections than those produced by the delta variant at the peak of the wave in April 2021. What does the question raises: When coronavirus pandemic will end?
Also in The Lancet it is estimated that by the end of March 2022 more than 50% of the world population will have been infected by omicron. However, available data suggest that 80-90% of omicron infections are asymptomatic, so the number of infected people would be much higher than estimated.
Due to the high rate of transmission of the omicron variant, it has been calculated that, even if 80% of the population used masks, the rate of new infections would only be reduced by 10% during the following months.
The evolution of the coronavirus in the next months
As by March 2022 a large proportion of the world’s population will have been infected by omicron and the vaccination rate will have increased, low transmission of the coronavirus is expected for several months afterwards, thus ending the sixth wave.
However, as with other respiratory viruses (for example the influenza virus), an increase in coronavirus transmission is expected during the coming winter. Nevertheless, the impact will be less due to the high degree of immunization of the population, the adaptation of vaccines to possible new variants, the existence of antiviral drugs, etc.
That is, after the sixth wave produced by the omicron variant, COVID-19 will reappear but the pandemic will not.
