‘Back at the Epicenter of the Pandemic.’ COVID-19 Cases on the Rise in Western Europe

(THE HAGUE, Netherlands) — Santa won’t be getting his traditional welcome in the Dutch city of Utrecht this year. The ceremonial head of Carnival celebrations in Germany’s Cologne had to bow out because he tested positive for COVID-19. And Austria is considering imposing a lockdown on unvaccinated people. Nearly two years into a global health crisis that has killed more than 5 million people, infections are again sweeping across parts of Western Europe, a region with relatively high vaccination rates and good health care systems but where lockdown measures are largely a thing of the past. The World Health Organization said coronavirus deaths rose by 10% in Europe in the past week, and an agency official declared last week that the continent was “back at the epicenter of the pandemic.” Much of that is being driven by spiraling outbreaks in Russia and Eastern Europe — where vaccination rates tend to be low — but countries in the west such as Germany and Britain recorded some of the highest new case tolls in the world. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] While nations in Western Europe all have vaccination rates over 60% — and some like Portugal and Spain are much higher — that still leaves a significant portion of their populations without protection. Dr. Bharat Pankhania, senior clinical lecturer at Exeter University College of Medicine and Health, says that the large number of unvaccinated people combined with a w...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized COVID-19 wire Source Type: news