THe greets of an epidemic tend to increase like a tsunami, slowly, almost surreptitiously, before a sudden increase. In some parts of Europe it is now feared that the covid-19 cases will again be close to a threatening turning point. In Spain, the new daily cases in the week until July 28 have risen sharply to almost ten times the minimum they had dropped in June, when the closure was lifted. The less dramatic but troubling increases in cases are beginning to bubble in other European countries.
For the time being, peaks in Europe are largely limited to a few critical countries, regions within them, or even cities. Infection rates are particularly high in the Balkans and in Spain, which has recorded around 27 cases per 100,000 people in the past week. The corresponding case rate in Germany, France and Italy is single digit. In both low and high rate countries, most new cases are often concentrated in particular locations. Approximately two thirds of the cases in Spain in the last week are from only two regions, Catalonia and Aragon, which are home to a fifth of the Spanish. About 20% of Italy’s cases in the same period are in the Emilia-Romagna region, which has only 7% of the population.
The increase in cases across Europe is not surprising, says Hans Kluge of the World Health Organization. As the blockages were lifted and people resumed travel and mixing, both imported cases and the local spread of the virus have pushed the counts. What is different now is that test and trace systems are detecting local spikes early, and authorities are fighting them with localized measures. On July 27, Antwerp, the most populous province in Belgium, announced a nocturnal curfew for non-essential movements and made the masks mandatory in public spaces; People were told to stay home as much as possible. Covid groups have sprung up across Germany, in residences, workplaces and private parties, forcing officials to impose localized blockades. In mid-July, the Catalan authorities re-imposed a strict confinement in Lleida, a city of 140,000 inhabitants. Nightclubs in Barcelona and other access points in Spain were recently closed or were ordered to close early.
The various rates of covid-19 across Europe have led countries to make some difficult decisions. In a normal year, some 18 million Britons seek sun fun in Spain, along with many other northern Europeans. But as cases in Spain increased, Britain and Norway quickly regained quarantine for people coming from Spain. Vacationers to Greece from some Balkan countries must now show evidence of a negative test for covid-19 to enter the country. That has dealt a blow to what remained of the foreign tourist season in much of southern Europe. But there has been a collective sigh of relief among health officials watching with bustling clubs and beaches full of drunken foreigners.
That, however, still leaves the matter of intensifying local transmission. A pattern across Europe is that new cases have occurred mainly among people in their 20s and 30s; Groups linked to large parties have become a recurring theme across the continent. German politicians have warned that citizens are increasingly complacent with dangers; Surveys confirm suspicions that fewer people avoid crowded public spaces or private gatherings. Dr. Kluge says the priority in Europe now is to ensure that young people are more compliant with such precautions. If that fails, he says, it won’t be long before infections spread to older, vulnerable people.
As summer begins to slow, the need to contain outbreaks across Europe will become increasingly acute. A major concern in all countries is fall, when people start spending more time indoors and the flu and other respiratory infections increase as they do each year, filling hospital beds. Countries that reach that point with a high plateau of covid-19 cases could see a return to exponential growth that again overwhelms hospitals. Across Europe, they are better prepared for a second wave than the first, with new measures to stem the spread of covid-19 in hospitals and rollaway beds and field hospitals that are now out of control. But how hard they get hit will largely depend on how much their citizens choose to play under the new normal rules.■
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This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the title “Still with us”
