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The virus has started to spread again among older people, according to data from France, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. In France, the number of infections in the group of people aged 75 and over has more than doubled in the last three weeks.
As Europe faces a second wave of the virus, such a shift could be a turning point. The rising number of cases among the elderly, the growing number of reports of conglomerates in nursing homes and the rise in death statistics are “major warning signs,” the French Public Health Agency said in a report last Thursday.
“This is a very serious situation,” said Hans Kluge, director of the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for Europe. He wore a mask for the first time during a press conference on Thursday. “The September cases should be a wake-up call for all of us.”
According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a 75-year-old woman has a coronavirus infection 220 times more deadly than her 27-year-old granddaughter.
In France, Health Minister Olivier Veran pointed out a worrying fact: the number of COVID-19 patients in intensive care units is increasing.
The rising number of infections among the elderly means that more hospitalizations and deaths could be expected in the coming weeks, according to French authorities. Because the condition of sick people usually worsens within a few weeks, changes in death statistics may take time to notice.
“Trapiausi”
Veran directly asked French seniors to be more careful in limiting the number of people they meet each day because they are “the most fragile in the confrontation with COVID.”
Data for Italy show a similar trend. The average age of those diagnosed in the week ending Sept. 13 increased from 30 to 41 a few weeks ago, and the report says the virus is now circulating “among the elderly.”
Even in Germany, which has managed to control the weekly rate of infections to around 11.5 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, down to around a seventh the level of France, the hotspots of travelers are already moving to the homes of seniors.
Kaufboiren, a small town in Bavaria, is a good example to illustrate. The virus outbreaks here initially broke out only among people returning from a trip, as the city’s mayor, Stefan Bosse, had spoken in a video in early September.
“Unfortunately, the situation is changing now,” Bosse said.
First, an employee at a local nursing home tested positive for the virus. About 30 residents and staff were infected with the virus last week, according to the Robert Koch Institute.
Authorities must find ways to protect older people without shutting them down, French President Emmanuel Macron said on Friday.
“We are tightening the rules,” Macron said, citing the need to evaluate nursing home staff as one of the reinforced measures. “We know that the isolation and loneliness of the elderly is a bad thing.”
Madrid hospitals reflect the painful scourge of a pandemic in Europe
Hospitals in Madrid are once again resupplying seriously ill patients with COVID-19, recalling the bleak outlook of spring in southern Europe, when the health system could not bear the brunt of the crisis.
On Thursday, compared to the end of last week, the number of beds for COIVD-19 patients treated in resuscitation and intensive care units (RITS) jumped from 25 to 39 percent in the Spanish capital region, according to data officers. However, Miguel Hernán, a professor of epidemiology at Harvard University who worked as an advisor to the Spanish government, said that the capacity calculations used by Spain did not reflect the real picture of hospitals and that the beds in the resuscitation and care units Intensive courses in Madrid were practically all occupied.
“Once again we are facing a serious health crisis,” Hernán wrote on Twitter. “RITS was our last line of defense.”
These are the latest signs of a crisis, with many European countries, including France and the UK, battling a new pandemic that has erupted after the summer respite.
According to M Hernano, Spain needs quarantine again, and already on Friday, the regional government of Madrid may announce more restrictions.
“Without adequate diagnostic capacity, contact markers, or isolation and quarantine care, the last hope was that hospitals would not be overcrowded,” said Hernán, who advised the government in late June to lift one of the strictest national quarantines. of the world.
The new quarantine may be shorter than the first and less strict because “the curve is flatter,” he said.
The number of new cases of the virus in Spain per day on Thursday, compared to Wednesday, fell by almost 700 cases to 3,471.
Although the rate has increased compared to the beginning of summer, it is comparable to the number of infections recorded in April: more than 8,000 cases per day.
Another 500 patients died from COVID-19 last week, bringing the total number of deaths from coronavirus to 31,118, according to the Health Department.
Although the daily incidence rate is below the spring level, it has increased markedly since August. Madrid is already cracking down on it, announcing restrictions last Friday in 37 areas, including the suburbs and metropolitan areas of Madrid, that allow people to leave their homes only for good reasons, such as traveling to work or school.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and the head of the capital region, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, a fierce critic of Sánchez, announced this week that they will form a joint crisis response task force.
I. Díaz Ayuso’s deputy, Ignacio Aguado, asked the central government to send troops to help solve logistical problems.
In Spain, one of the strictest quarantines in the world was introduced in March-April, when hundreds of people died every day.
When austerity measures were lifted in late June, seventeen regions of the country regained full control of their health systems from the central government.
The decentralized Spanish health system makes fighting the virus difficult, as regional authorities can set their own policies and the central government has failed to unite them.
Many regions have never followed the recommendations made by government advisers at the beginning of the pandemic, such as increasing the number of contact trackers and RITS beds.
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