A Completely Different Christmas Is Set – Analysis

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It will be a completely different Christmas: no crowds in the shops, no bazaars and mulled wine, no noisy parties with friends and lonely Christmas trees glittering in empty squares. A Christmas Eve, in which dinner in the small circle of the house, with no more than one or two friends, will be the most common image in European cities and towns. This will be a big change for Catholics and porters, for whom Christmas is the brightest holiday of the year and tradition dictates lavish celebrations and merriment.

Pressured by the second wave of infection, Europe is fast sinking into a new ubiquitous shutdown with an active lockdown with Ireland and the Czech Republic. And with France and Belgium, who will probably follow suit at the end of the week. With afternoon hours and strict restrictions to go out in Holland, Germany, Portugal, Spain, Greece and other places.

It is not yet clear which closure model Europe will choose. Continent leaders will speak remotely from their offices on Thursday about coordinating restrictive measures to ease pressure on their hospitals, suffocating covid patients. The choice is between a 3-4 week series of austerity measures, alternating with a slight relaxation of “air intake” restrictions and maintaining full closure without dissolving until the epidemic is contained. Such are the expectations of the special adviser on the coronavirus epidemic of the president of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen for the epidemic Prof. Peter Piot.

“We need to act now when cases increase, not after 3-4 weeks, when many people begin to die,” Piot said.

The bad news

Unlike the first wave of COVID-19 in the winter, the second affects all European countries equally. No one was saved. Even some of the excellent first hit players, such as the Czech Republic, are now among the most seriously injured.

According to Professor Piot, the reason for such a powerful second wave, in addition to seasonal peculiarities, is the rapid removal of restrictions in the summer and the widespread underestimation of the measures, both by authorities and citizens.

“A measure like masks makes sense if 95% of people wear them. At 60%, which is the European average, they don’t make much sense,” said the microbiologist who heads the Royal Institute of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in London.

Added to the bad news is fatigue due to restrictions on the part of citizens and the company, as well as the exhaustion of health specialists, who are on the front line for the seventh month.

“The situation is very serious and there is a risk that it will get worse if we do not take more urgent and drastic measures,” said Piot.

Currently, around 1,000 Europeans die every day from complications caused by COVID-19, and all indicators are expected to deteriorate in the coming weeks, while the measures currently in place are in force. The increase in deaths in the last week is 1/3 compared to the previous one.

The good news

The second wave also brings good news. So far, resuscitation is only a third of its capacity compared to the first wave of the epidemic, although there are incomparably more infected. Meanwhile, new beds have been discovered, equipment has been purchased for them, which has increased resuscitation capacity. Thanks to better testing opportunities, infected people are more quickly identified and isolated, as well as their contacts. Doctors have learned to help their patients more effectively, and extremely serious complications are minor. The risk of death from COVID-19 has been cut in half compared to the spring.

Bulgaria is one of the bad exceptions with higher mortality compared to the initial stage of the epidemic. Even compared to the currently most affected European country, Belgium, the data for Bulgaria are alarming. In Belgium, about 13,000 new infections are detected every day, with a total of 5,554 hospitalized and a total of 911 patients in intensive care. At the same time, in Bulgaria, with around 2,600 newly infected a day, there are 2,217 people in hospitals, 145 in intensive care units.

Health or economy

The understanding in Brussels, and in the most influential European capitals, is that the health crisis must be addressed first and the economy must be thought after. Decisions to introduce measures to limit the spread of infection should also be subject to this. Professor Piot pointed out that the countries with the highest mortality are also those with the biggest drop in GDP. Resolution of the health problem should precede economic recovery, believes Piot, who is a staunch supporter of tighter restrictions, while the second wave can still be managed.

Von der Layen, who gave a press conference in Brussels today, stressed that money is provided for the economy and that the damage of the temporary closure of businesses should not serve as an excuse for not taking measures strong enough to stop the spread of the epidemic .

Christmas wishes

It seems that news of the discovery of vaccine it will be one of the most coveted Christmas gifts in Europe. Currently, 11 vaccine applicants are in the final phase of efficacy and safety trials, with at least one of them completing by the end of this year and another early next year. However, this does not mean that the vaccines will appear on the market immediately.

No more mass production can be expected before April, warned Ursula von der Leyen. In the best case, where all the more advanced developments prove to be equally successful and are licensed for sale in Europe, only in the spring will it be possible to produce larger quantities, around 20-60 million doses per month. This will mean that for at least a time, vaccines will be used in combination with other measures such as wearing masks and maintaining social distance, for example. Under this scenario, about 1.2 billion vaccines will be available to Europe and the poorer countries that it has committed to helping by the end of the year, Von der Layen said.

Given that all the advances are clinically successful, by the end of the year in the EU and in the countries it has committed to helping, theoretically, more than 700 million people will be able to get vaccinated, much more than necessary. It must also be taken into account that the effectiveness of possible vaccines will not exceed 70%. Furthermore, around 25% of European citizens say they do not want to be vaccinated.

“The vaccine is not a miracle that will change everything in one day, but a light at the end of the tunnel,” said von der Leyen.

However, if not all developments are successful, which is the most likely scenario, all these predictions will be much slower to implement, vaccines will reach those in need more slowly, and later waves of massive infection are not ruled out.

The European Commission is expected on Thursday to call on member states to urgently start drawing up national immunization plans to be ready with storage, supply chain and distribution assistance, as well as deciding which populations at risk will be the first to receive doses. of the future vaccine, because there will not be for everyone.

To date, the Commission has entered into advance contracts with three manufacturers (Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca and Sanofi-GSK) and is negotiating with three more (CureVac, Moderna and BioNTech). The agreements provide for the supply of vaccines under equal conditions for all Member States, and the parties plan, order and pay for the doses themselves.

The European Commission is also promoting new quick tests authorize the sale of antibodies against the coronavirus in the EU with a common license. Only in this way, according to Von der Layen, will it be possible for them to be recognized in all countries and for their results to be validated by the authorities of all Member States.

New tests now on the market are much cheaper and faster. Not only will they make it easier to travel from one country to another, but they will also make it possible to detect the infection at an earlier stage to start treatment before complications develop. They will also prevent ubiquitous complete shutdowns, since through massive testing and contact tracing, outbreaks of infection are more quickly neutralized.

The European Commission has announced that it intends to buy rapid tests for 100 million euros to distribute among the members, as well as organize a joint public procurement through which countries can buy the additional quantities they need. Rapid tests, which are expected to become as widespread as pregnancy tests and sold in pharmacies, will be a complement to PCR tests, which remain the “gold standard” for diagnosing COVID-19.

The text is from Yovka Dimitrova’s personal blog.