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A SECOND wave of coronavirus will hit Europe this winter if the blockages are lifted too soon, a senior World Health Organization official warned.
Dr. Hans Kluge, the agency’s director for the European region, said governments must be cautious in lifting the restrictions and that now is the “time for preparation, not celebration.”
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Speaking to the Telegraph, he said a second wave of the killer bug, which has infected 4.5 million people worldwide and killed about 300,000, could hit Europe along with an outbreak of other infectious diseases.
“I am very concerned about a double wave: in the fall, we could have a second wave of Covid and another of seasonal flu or measles,” he said.
“People think the shutdown is over. Nothing has changed.
“The complete disease control package must be in place. That is the key message.”
He added that countries would have to proceed “gradually and carefully” until a vaccine has been developed.
The warning comes as the number of coronavirus cases spirals up in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan.
New studies have also shown that only five percent of the population in France and Spain has developed immunity to the killer coronavirus.
The investigation showed that “there is no collective immunity in Spain,” declared a “not surprised” health minister, Salvador Illa.
The study, carried out by the Carlos III Health Institute and the National Statistics Institute, evaluated 60,000 people looking for antibodies created to combat the new disease.
The results indicate that five percent – 2.3 million of the 45 million inhabitants of Spain – have been affected by the error, about ten times the official count of less than 230,000 cases.
FRENCH DO NOT IMMUNE
And in France, a A study led by the Pasteur Institute says that only 4.4 percent of the population, or 2.8 million people, have been infected with the virus.
Reuters reports that this figure is much higher than the official case count, but too low to achieve so-called “collective immunity.”
“About 65 percent of the population should be immune if we want to control the pandemic by the only means of immunity,” says the study.
Herd immunity refers to the place where enough people in a population have protection against an infection to be able to effectively stop the spread of that disease.
The infection rate was measured on May 11, the day France began undoing its nearly two-month national blockade.
The investigations said: “Our results show that without a vaccine, the herd’s immunity alone will not be enough to prevent a second wave at the end of the blockade.
“Therefore, efficient control measures must be maintained after May 11.”
RESTRICTIONS MADE
Findings from Spain’s crash study indicate that the country continues to carefully ease restrictions.
“In principle, these results do not provide a basis for varying the plan we are working on,” said the Spanish health minister.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez had said that people would be allowed to leave their homes for short walks and exercise starting May 2 after seven weeks of strict home confinement.
Just over half of Spain’s population advanced to the second phase of a four-step relief plan on Monday.
But Madrid, Barcelona and other cities like Valencia, Malaga and Granada have remained in preparatory phase 0.
That level means that hairdressers and other companies offering services by appointment can reopen, restaurants can offer take-out services, professional sports leagues can train. In addition, short walks and individual sports activities are allowed.
The joint antibody study showed that Madrid, one of the most affected regions, showed a prevalence of coronavirus of 11.3 percent.
Soria and Cuenca, in the central regions of Castilla y León and Castilla La Mancha, are the provinces with the highest prevalence, with 14.2 and 13.5 percent respectively.
Spain has a four-phase plan to lift the coronavirus blockade and return to normal by the end of June.
The country also imposed a two-week quarantine on foreign travelers and virtually closed the border to air and sea travel to avoid importing new cases from other countries.
Its authorities will keep the borders closed for most foreign travelers until July, two sources with the foreign ministry said on Wednesday.
There is hope that the movement will prevent a second wave of coronavirus infection.
The land borders with France and Portugal have been closed since a state of emergency was declared in mid-March.
To avoid triggering a new wave of infections imported by travelers from abroad, the government is studying ways to control who can enter the country.
ANTIBODY TEST HOPE
Two proposed models are sanitary corridors or medical testing requirements.
Countries around the world, including the United Kingdom, have been relying on antibody testing.
In March Prime Minister Boris Johnson He said Britain was hoping to buy an antibody test that would be “as simple as a pregnancy test.”
He explained that “it obviously has the potential to totally change the game” to install trust in people looking to return to their workplace.
And this week it was announced that Public Health England gave the go-ahead for the first coronavirus antibody test that could help ease the blockade in the UK.
The potentially revolutionary kit was developed by the Swiss health company Roche.
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PHE’s Porton Down facility gave it the seal of approval last week, with the government now in talks to buy millions of the tests.
The kit supports the detection of antibodies in patients who have been exposed to the coronavirus and will therefore be immune to capture of the virus again.
They will be critical for the UK to lift the stringent closure measures and allow people to return to work, and the government has even suggested granting “immunity passports” to those who pass the test.
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