The World Health Organization's (WHO) Europe Director, Hans Kluge, noted on Tuesday that the European region saw over seven million newly reported cases of COVID-19 in the first week of 2022, as reported by Reuters.

"The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) forecasts that more than 50% of the population in the European region will be infected with Omicron in the next 6-8 weeks," Kluge added. "Because of the unprecedented scale of transmission, we are now seeing rising COVID-19 hospitalizations."

Market reaction

These comments don't seem to be having a significant impact on market sentiment and Germany's DAX 30 Index was last seen rising more than 1% on a daily basis.