“Fourth Massive Wave”: Why is Europe again the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic?

The current rate of transmission of the coronavirus on Europe It is “very worrying” and could cause half a million additional deaths between now and February on the continent, warned this Thursday the World Health Organization (WHO).

This fourth wave “massive” especially affects Germany, which on Thursday registered a record of daily infections since the pandemic of coronavirus, with a total of 33,949 cases in 24 hours, according to the institute of sanitary surveillance, Robert Koch.

“We are, again, at the epicenter”, lamented the director of the WHO Europe, Hans Kluge, at an online press conference.

“The current rate of transmission in the 53 countries that make up the European region is very worrying (…) If we maintain this trajectory we could have another half a million deaths from covid-19 in the region between now and February”added.

For the WHO, the increase in cases is explained by the combination of insufficient vaccination with a relaxation of measures against the coronavirus.

According to the data of the WHO Europe, hospitalizations linked to the coronavirus “have doubled in a week”.

Precisely to stop the saturation of hospitals, this Thursday the United Kingdom, one of the countries in the world most mourned by the pandemic, approved molnupiravir, a drug in tablets against covid-19 prepared by the American laboratory Merck, which can reduce hospitalizations by 50%. It is the first country in the world to standardize this treatment.

Use masks in a massive way

Since the beginning of the pandemic, in Europe More than 1.4 million deaths have been recorded out of a total of more than 5 million, according to a balance established by AFP this Thursday at 11:00 GMT from official sources.

But the WHO estimates that if the excess mortality linked to the covid-19, directly and indirectly, the actual balance of the pandemic could be two to three times higher than the official one.

The number of new cases per day has been on the rise for almost six consecutive weeks in Europe and the number of daily deaths has risen for seven weeks. The figures are an average of 250,000 new cases and 3,600 deaths per day, according to official data compiled by AFP.

The rise is driven by the figures of Russia (8,162 deaths in the last seven days, + 8% compared to the previous week), Ukraine (3,819 deaths, 1%) and Romania (3,100 deaths, + 4%), mainly.

“Most of the people hospitalized and who die from covid-19 today are not fully vaccinated”Kluge stressed.

On average, only 47% of the region’s inhabitants, which includes European and other Central Asian countries, are fully vaccinated, according to WHO.

To fight the pandemic, the organization asked to continue with vaccination, use the mask in a generalized way and continue to apply social distancing.

“Reliable data shows that if we continue to use the mask 95% in Europe and Central Asia, we will be able to save up to 188,000 lives of the half a million that we risk losing between now and February 2022”, Kluge said.

“Certain unconcern”

On Germany, an average of 19,702 daily cases was registered in the last 7 days, a figure that had not been seen since the end of April.

“The situation is serious”Helge Braun, a close collaborator of Angela Merkel at the chancellery, said on the public channel ZDF. “We already see a massive burden (in hospitals) in Thuringia and Saxony,” both in the east of the country, he insisted.

The Health Minister and his counterparts from the different German regions meet on Thursday and Friday in Lindau (south) and could decide on new restrictions.

But this worsening of the health situation occurs in a complicated political context in Germany, with a government in office and waiting for the formation of a new executive after the legislative elections in September.

Negotiations are currently underway for a coalition between the Social Democrats, the Greens and the Liberals.

The outgoing Chancellor said “very concerned” by this evolution and “very saddened” by the high number of people over 60 years not vaccinated. He also regretted that there is a “certain nonchalance.”

The Minister of Health, Jens Spahn, asked all the regions, competent in health matters, to tighten the rules for the unvaccinated, prohibiting them from access to certain places or demanding an expensive PCR test.

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