WHO regional director for Europe Hans Kluge said a sudden spike in September “should serve as a wake-up call for all of us” after Europe set a new record last week, with some 54,000 cases recorded in 24 hours. “Although these numbers reflect more comprehensive tests, they also show alarming transmission rates across the region,” he told an online news conference from Copenhagen.
More than 30 million infections have been recorded and more than 943,000 people have died since the new coronavirus emerged in China late last year, according to the latest AFP tally based on official sources. Europe represents 4.7 million of the total. Across Europe, governments are struggling to contain the further increase in cases, while wanting to avoid inflicting further damage to their economies and impose sweeping new restrictions on their virus-weary populations.
French authorities are preparing stricter restrictions in several cities to reduce an increase in Covid-19 cases that has reported almost 10,000 new cases per day during the last week. Health Minister Olivier Veran said new measures for Lyon and Nice will be announced on Saturday, after restrictions were imposed on public gatherings this week in Bordeaux and Marseille.
In Britain, new measures will take effect on Friday, with Prime Minister Boris Johnson warning that pubs may have to close earlier to help avoid a “second hump” of coronavirus cases. Residents of the northeast of England, including the cities of Newcastle and Sunderland, will no longer be able to meet people outside of their homes.
The government, facing criticism for a lack of testing capacity, imposed rules in England on Monday limiting socialization to groups of six or fewer, as daily cases reached levels not seen since early May. Britain has been the worst affected country in Europe with almost 42,000 deaths.
Meanwhile, the city of Madrid backtracked on a plan for selective closures, saying it would instead move to “reduce mobility and contacts” in areas with high infection rates. Austria announced that private indoor gatherings would be limited to 10 people, including all parties, private events and indoor gatherings. Chancellor Sebastian Kurz had warned earlier this week that the Alpine nation was entering a second wave of infections.
Outside of Europe, Israel will become the first developed country to enforce a second national lockdown, which will begin Friday afternoon. Her government asked that hundreds of its citizens who are blocked on the Ukrainian-Belarusian border return home. About 2,000 Hasidic Jewish pilgrims, mainly from the United States, Israel and France, are concentrated on the border that Ukraine has closed for most of this month to prevent the spread of the virus.
The pilgrims expected to arrive in the city of Uman for the Jewish New Year this weekend. Israel has the second highest virus infection rate in the world after Bahrain, according to an AFP tally. In further comment Thursday, WHO Europe said it would not change its guidance for a 14-day quarantine period for those exposed to the virus.
The recommendation is based “on our understanding of the incubation period and transmission of the disease. We will only review it based on a change in our understanding of the science,” said Catherine Smallwood, WHO emergency officer for Europe.
France has reduced the recommended period of time for self-isolation to seven days, while in the United Kingdom and Ireland it is 10 days. Several more European countries, such as Portugal and Croatia, are also considering shorter quarantines. Elsewhere, a study published by Oxfam found that wealthy nations have already purchased more than half of the promised stocks of Covid-19 vaccines.
“Access to a life-saving vaccine shouldn’t depend on where you live or how much money you have,” said Robert Silverman of Oxfam America. Pharmaceutical companies are racing to produce an effective jab to counter a virus that has now killed more than 940,000 people worldwide and infected nearly 30 million.
The top five candidate vaccines currently in late-stage trials will be able to deliver 5.9 billion doses, enough to inoculate about three billion people, Oxfam said. About 51 percent of those coups have been attacked by wealthy nations and blocs, including the United States, Britain, the European Union, Australia, Hong Kong and Macau, Japan, Switzerland, and Israel.
The remaining 2.6 billion have been bought or promised to developing countries such as India, Bangladesh, China, Brazil, Indonesia and Mexico. As tragedies multiply, governments face legal action from citizens for alleged failure to respond. A French association of Covid-19 victims plans to file a legal complaint against Prime Minister Jean Castex for France’s handling of the pandemic, his lawyer said.
In China, however, grieving family members have had their demands abruptly rejected, while scores of others face pressure from authorities not to come forward, according to people involved in the effort. The economic effects of the pandemic continue to mount. On Thursday, New Zealand slipped into recession for the first time in a decade, the 12.2 percent contraction in April-June “by far the biggest” since records began, the national data agency Stats NZ said.
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