The world’s largest sinkhole for covid deaths is closer than you think

June 30, 2020 was a warm and sunny day in Prague. Along the iconic Charles Bridge, a 500-meter row of wooden tables and benches was installed where, throughout the day, thousands of people shared food, drink, laughter and optimism. Around him, musicians and street artists permeated the atmosphere with an air of liberation and delirium after the end of the restrictions due to the pandemic, which until that moment had caused no more than 350 deaths. They called it the Coronavirus Farewell Party.

While Western Europe was content to go out onto the balcony, watched in awe as its healthcare systems collapsed and began to rack up tens of thousands of deaths, most Eastern European countries intermittently groped for somewhat lax restrictions (e.g. Czech Republic allowed “Meetings of up to 1,000 people” last summer) and were confident in their ability to weather a disaster that followed the news almost like a science fiction series. In Poland, Prime Minister Morawiecki promised his citizens that they would never see “dramatic scenes like those in Spain, where doctors have to choose who lives and who dies ”due to lack of respirators. A feeling of exceptionality, almost of immunity, extended east of Berlin. Eastern Europe surfed the first wave almost unscathed, compared to its neighbors.

Today, 12 of the 15 countries with the newest deaths per million inhabitants in the world belong to Eastern Europe.

Poland has been registering successive records since last week, touching 1,000 fatalities in a single day and reporting an average of more than 600 deaths and about 30,000 new infections daily. With equipment and personnel shortages, patients are being moved between regions, sometimes using military transports. On March 24, the psychological barrier of 50,000 deaths was crossed and, if we continue at the current rate, it will reach 60,000 at the end of April.

For its part, Hungary is the country that has recently suffered the world’s highest death rate from covid. But the prime minister, Viktor OrbánInstead of decreeing a national lockdown, it has chosen to relax the restrictions and open stores, hotels, restaurants and schools in the coming days. The approximately 300 daily victims already accumulate a cumulative rate of almost 2,400 deaths per million inhabitants, very close to the Czech Republic, which with 2,575 deaths It holds the first place in Europe on this macabre list.

Bosnia (2.235), Montenegro (2.156), Bulgaria (2.051), Slovenia (1.972), Slovakia (1,906) and other Balkan countries are also facing a disastrous third wave, with numbers proportionally worse than our country (1,629) and even Italy (1,869) or the UK (1.863).

It is striking that this group of countries, which due to a combination of factors and a rapid reaction at the beginning of the pandemic managed to contain the spread of the virus, are now in the worst situation on the continent and one of the worst in the world. What happened between the Prague party and today?

According to experts, it is precisely that: overconfidence and lack of social discipline, together with contradictory government measures (the Polish government advised last summer to stay at home while distributing vacation vouchers to millions of families so that they could travel) and, finally, to the efforts of the administrations to keep the economy afloat by alternating Selective closings with unrestricted periods.

The lack of consistency in the instructions of those responsible and the lurching from one extreme to the other have fueled feelings of frustration and mistrust among citizens, and the only thing everyone seems to agree on is that rapid and mass vaccination is the only possible solution. But there are profound discrepancies in the strategies for this.

The first EU government falls in Slovakia due to its management of the pandemic

EFE

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In Slovakia, the government’s plan to acquire the Russian Sputnik-V vaccine has sparked the resignation of six ministers. Hungary was the first EU country to decide on the Russian preparation, which has been described as “a hybrid war weapon” by some members of the Slovak Executive. A spokesman for the Polish Administration said recently that his country is studying “buy on your own ”Chinese vaccines if the EU supply is insufficient or delays vaccination plans. The race to vaccinate the more the better as soon as possible has become a goal that all countries want to achieve by resorting to all possible alternatives.

Governments’ demands of their citizens have also met with sometimes violent opposition. From the Polish merchants who, plain and simple, they are declared non-compliant before the closing orders and who have rallied to deal with legal problems until the Belgrade riots, where thousands of people erected barricades, seated the city center and confronted the police causing dozens of injuries, it can be said that the discontent of the population has become an open challenge to the authorities.

To add to the sense of chaos and lack of control, there have been episodes such as the announcement by the Polish Government – the local April Fools’ Day – that Anyone over 40 could sign up to be vaccinated. In a matter of minutes, the website created for it collapsed and the Executive had to backtrack on its plan. At the same time, the churches were the only public places that remained open during Holy Week and the Ministry of Health reported 60 times more cases than on the same dates last year.

And it is not that the governments of these countries have allowed time to pass without acting: the massive purchases of respirators – Hungary acquired no less than 12,000 – and other equipment demonstrate the will to anticipate what is happening. But the real problem facing most of these countries is the lack of health personnel to use them. Eastern Europe has for decades exported millions of skilled workers who, in the particular case of doctors, are now needed more than ever. It’s only been a month since more than 5,500 Hungarian doctors resigned Due to a salary dispute with the Government and Poland, he has appealed to doctors, first from Ukraine, then Belarus and then from the rest of the world, to settle in this country under the promise of advantageous conditions.

On the other hand, the vaccination process in these countries is being carried out efficiently, at least compared to most of Western Europe: Hungary itself, which also uses Chinese vaccines, has managed to inject at least one dose to almost 30% of its population, Slovakia to one eighth of his and Poland has exceeded seven million doses administered. However, the distribution of vaccines by the EU is not as fast and efficient as governments demand and it seems clear that if more vaccines were available, the process would accelerate.

Nobody sees anything clear in the city that gives light: “We must prepare for a total war”

Fermín Torrano. Svitlodarsk

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If the countries under the EU umbrella are suffering hard from the blow of the third wave, the case of Ukraine is even more tragic. Kiev is a city in permanent semi-confinement, and the approximately 400 daily deaths are a daily tragedy that for now has no end in sight. Of the 40 million Ukrainians, only 250,000 have received a shot from the vaccine and virtually no one has yet received their second dose.

It is estimated that this year there is a tourist influx of less than 50% of last year, when the first wave was raging and the number of visitors had already dropped considerably. In Prague, the Charles Bridge looks unusually quiet and is crossed almost exclusively by locals. Following safety recommendations, most people wear a mask and Few want to remember that 10 months ago the ‘farewell to the coronavirus’ was celebrated.

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