Europe goes back to the “dark times” of Covid-19, summarizes the British newspaper The Guardian, quoted by FOCUS News Agency. The continent has once again become the center of a global coronavirus epidemic. European countries from the Baltic to the Mediterranean are preparing to tighten measures to counter the new wave of the virus.
What led to the return of the dangerous disease?
Until recently, Europeans thought there was no pandemic. In Cologne, thousands of costumed partygoers crowded side by side in dense crowds to mark the start of the annual carnival season at 11 a.m. on Nov. 11, according to The Guardian. In Paris, bars and clubs were open late and were crowded on Wednesday, Armistice Day, which ended World War I. In Amsterdam, crowded cafes and bars looked as usual. But instead of heralding the beginning of a season of festivities that will culminate in Christmas and New Year, these scenes of “peaceful life” may have been the last before the fourth wave of coronavirus swept Europe. Half a dozen Dutch cities have already canceled popular parades celebrating the annual arrival of Sinterklaas (Santa Claus) this weekend to the delight of children, and Germany’s famous Christmas bazaars can be canceled.
“You can’t imagine standing in the market drinking mulled wine while hospitals are full and suffocating for the last resources,” Saxon Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer said last week, calling on the German federal government to make the unpopular decision.
The Netherlands became the first Western European country to impose a partial lockdown on Saturday, Berlin closes its restaurants to the unvaccinated and France is quick to improve its booster campaign – Europe is once again at the epicenter of the pandemic.
Over the past week, the number of coronavirus infections on the continent has risen by 7% and the number of deaths by 10%, according to the World Health Organization, making Europe the only region in the world where the number of Covid-19 deaths and deaths is rising. stable.
Nearly two-thirds of new infections – about 1.9 million – are in Europe, according to the WHO, where the spread of the virus has increased on the continent for the sixth week in a row, with several countries experiencing a fourth or fifth wave.
According to The Guardian, experts agree that the most likely cause of what is happening in Europe is a combination of low vaccination rates, weakened immunity among long-vaccinated people and growing complacency about wearing masks and distancing after governments eased restrictions in the summer. .
“The idea has always been: do everything,” said Hans Kluge, WHO’s regional director for Europe, last week. – Vaccines do what they promised: they prevent severe forms of disease and especially mortality. But they are our most powerful asset only when used in conjunction with preventive measures.
According to OurWorldInData, the European continent has the highest vaccination rate in Southern Europe: more than 80% of the population has been vaccinated twice in Portugal, Malta and Spain, while Italy has 73%.
The seven-day moving averages for new daily infections are the lowest in the EU in those countries where about 100 per million people live, but they are rising, and in regions where vaccine consumption is low, they have risen sharply.
In Trieste, where there were major protests last month against green gaps in Italy – the toughest in Europe, where workers are required to show proof of vaccination, immunity or a recent negative test for access to jobs – the number of daily cases has risen more than twice …. “We are back to the dark days of the pandemic,” the head of one of the city’s intensive care units said last week after a boom in hospital admissions, with 90% of patients not being vaccinated.
But the Netherlands, France and Germany, where vaccination coverage is only a few percentage points lower, are also beginning to see a jump in infections, a challenge even for governments with relatively high levels of vaccination.
In the Netherlands, which has fully vaccinated 73% of its population, a three-week partial lockdown was introduced on Saturday: bars, restaurants and convenience stores close at 20:00, non-essential shops and services close from 18:00, and home gatherings were limited to four guests after the number of cases reached new records.
The country, which eased most restrictions over the summer, registered an average of 609 new infections per million people in seven days this week, prompting the government to drop its promise to remove all restrictions by the end of the year.
According to OurWorldInData, almost 69% of the French population is also fully vaccinated (government figures, which include those who received only one vaccine if they received Covid-19, are slightly higher). Entering shops, bars and restaurants, boarding a plane or train over long distances in the summer requires a “health passport” confirming vaccination, recovery or a negative test, and masks remain mandatory in public indoor spaces, but there is a rise in new cases.
“What we are experiencing in France obviously looks like the beginning of the fifth wave,” Health Minister Olivier Veran said last week, as the average number of new cases in seven days, although still relatively low, rose steadily to 134 cases. million.
President Emmanuel Macron said that from December 1, people over the age of 65 and people at risk who have not had their third vaccination will no longer be entitled to a “health pass” and at the same time the revaccination program will be extended to people over 50 years.
Germany, where 66.5% of the population is fully vaccinated, is on the verge of a fourth wave, which could be the most serious, recording the highest daily levels of infection in the last two years in the last five days, with 48,640 new infections. On Friday, the average for seven days exceeded 381 people per million.
The head of the German Disease Control Agency warned that intensive care units were facing unprecedented pressure, saying the situation in the country was “five minutes to midnight” while the worst-affected provinces were considering a lockdown.
From Monday in Berlin, only people who have been vaccinated or have recently recovered will be able to visit restaurants, cinemas and hairdressers. Federal Health Minister Jens Spahn on Friday proposed similar rules for attending public events.
Christoph Spiner, an infectious disease specialist in Munich, doubts that even these measures will be enough. “What we need now is concerted and rigorous government action, and I’m not sure we have it right now,” The Guardian quoted him as saying. At his hospital, about three-quarters of those treated for severe COVID had not been vaccinated, he said.
With the lowest vaccination rate (62.8%) and the highest infection rate (over 1000 cases per million per day) in almost all Western European countries, Austria is on track to introduce isolation for unvaccinated people in the two most affected region, which could encourage similar measures across the country. Federal Chancellor Alexander Schalenberg said on Friday that unvaccinated people in the provinces of Upper Austria and Salzburg would be allowed to leave the house only for special reasons, such as buying groceries or visiting a doctor.
Austria, Switzerland and Germany have the highest rates of unvaccinated people in Western Europe, although it is difficult to determine the specific reasons why people are reluctant to get vaccinated, notes The Guardian. Compared to southern European countries such as Italy or Spain, all three countries have had relatively moderate waves so far, which may have led many to underestimate the deadly danger of the coronavirus.
According to The Guardian, “alternative medicine” is popular in German-speaking countries: in Germany, for example, homeopathic medicines are offered by pharmacies and covered by many public health insurance funds. In the former GDR, the prevalence of measles and influenza vaccinations has traditionally been high, but Saxony, Thuringia, Brandenburg and Saxony-Anhalt are now at the bottom of the national coronavirus vaccination chart.
At the same time, in Central and Eastern Europe, poverty, poor health education and misinformation, combined with deep-seated distrust of government and government services, have led to the lowest vaccination levels in Europe. As a result, nine countries in Central and Eastern Europe currently rank among the top 10 with the highest daily coronavirus mortality rates in the EU. Romania and Bulgaria have the highest daily mortality rates in the bloc – about 22 per million – more than 30 times higher than France, Spain and Portugal.
Despite the abundant supply of vaccines, the two Eastern European countries have fully vaccinated the lowest proportion of their population of all 27 EU countries: only 34.5% of Romanians have received two doses, while in Bulgaria this is only 23.04 % of the population. Both countries recently imposed stricter restrictions, while Latvia, another low-vaccination country, introduced a four-week lockdown in mid-October. The Czech Republic, Slovakia and Russia have also tightened measures.
In Western Europe, the question now is whether the countries will be able to curb this latest wave without resorting to full-scale blockades, writes The Guardian. Experts say the answer is likely to be – measures such as distancing, wearing masks and mandatory vaccines to access indoor and outdoor activities will be vital.
“If something is missing, we will see the situations that are now observed in many European countries,” said Antonella Viola, a professor of immunology at the University of Padua, Italy.
WHO’s Hans Kluge said last week that authorities should speed up the release of vaccines, including booster vaccines for at-risk populations and vaccinations for adolescents. “Most people hospitalized and dying from COVID-19 today are not fully vaccinated,” the expert said. But public health and social action are equally important, he said, adding that the WHO estimates that 95% of universal use of masks in Europe can save nearly 200,000 lives. Preventive measures, applied “correctly and consistently”, allow us to live, not the other way around – said Kluge: “Preventive measures do not deprive people of freedom, they provide it.”
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