- World Health Organization special envoy said on Monday that the pandemic's end is "in sight."
- But envoy David Nabarro told Sky News that life will be "difficult" until at least the spring.
- The world — and US — faces a surge in COVID-19 cases fueled by the Omicron variant.
A special envoy on the World Health Organization's coronavirus team said on Monday that the pandemic's end is "in sight," but life will still be "difficult" until at least the spring.
"I'm afraid we are moving through the marathon but there's no actual way to say that we're at the end — we can see the end in sight, but we're not there," special envoy David Nabarro told Sky News.
He added that before the world gets to the end of the pandemic, there will be "some bumps."
"It's going to be difficult for the next three months at least," Nabarro told Sky.
He said that the world will continue to see new COVID-19 variants and feel the pressure of strained healthcare systems.
Though it's difficult to use the past to predict the future of behavior of the virus, Nabarro said that he expects the virus to come in surges and, in order to live with it, people will need to prepare and react quickly to the surges.
"Life can go on, we can get the economy going again in many countries, but we just have to be really respectful of the virus and that means having really good plans in place for dealing with the surges," he said.
The world is facing a surge in COVID-19 cases, in part due to the Omicron variant.
As of January 9, the world was facing an average of 2.4 million daily COVID-19 cases globally, according to Johns Hopkins data shared by the New York Times.
The US, which boasts the world's highest case count, is averaging nearly 670,000 new daily cases — fueled by the highly transmissible Omicron variant — according to the latest Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data.