24hoursworld

Several countries in Europe and Central Asia on alert for a possible rebound in cases in a few weeks

“The situation is serious,” he said on the public channel ZDF Helge Braun, close collaborator of Angela Merkel in the chancellery. “We already see a massive demand in hospitals in Thuringia and Saxony”, both in the east of the country.

The Minister of Health in Germany, Jens Spahn and his counterparts from the different regions of the country Teuton meet on Friday in Lindau (south) and They could decide new restrictions to combat the Covid-19 pandemic.

The official asked the set of regions, competent in health issues, to tighten the rules for the unvaccinated, prohibiting them from access to certain places or demanding an expensive PCR test.

Austria, for his part, he tightened restrictions amid a new record for Covid-19 infections. Vienna will allow only those vaccinated or recovered from coronavirus to go to restaurants, bars or hairdressers.

Croatia It also reached a new daily record, with 6,300 people testing positive for Covid-19, following in the footsteps of Russia, which has repeatedly broken its own records in recent weeks in Europe. Russia set another record for deaths in the last day: 1,195 new deaths.

On Czech Republic 9,902 infections were registered in one day, according to the Ministry of Health reported on Wednesday, approximately 60% more than a week before and the highest daily increase since March 23.

The health authority of Poland it also reported the highest daily number of new cases on Wednesday, since April, with more than 10,400, or 20% more than the previous week.

“We are at another critical point of rebound in the pandemic,” Kluge told reporters from WHO’s European headquarters in Copenhagen, Denmark. “Europe is once again at the epicenter of the pandemic, where we were a year ago.”

The number of new cases per day of Covid-19 has been on the rise for almost six consecutive weeks in Europe and the daily death toll has risen for seven weeks. The figures are an average of 250,000 new cases and 3,600 deaths per day, according to official data.

The COVID-19 hospitalization rate in the region more than doubled in the past week, Kluge noted.

The region reached almost 1.8 million new weekly cases, an increase of almost 6% from the previous week, and 24,000 weekly deaths from COVID-19, an increase of almost 12%.

If that trend continues, the region could suffer another 500,000 deaths associated with the pandemic by February, Kluge said.

For WHO, the rebound in the pandemic is explained by the combination of insufficient vaccination coverage, driven by the hundreds of people who refuse to receive antidotes, with a relaxation of measures for socialization, especially when Europe is one of the continents with the greatest interconnection and ease of movement between its countries, unlike other regions of the world.

Some scientists worry that declining immunity to vaccines across Europe could allow even more people to get sick from the virus during the winter season.

According to “reliable projections”, 95% of generalized use of the mask would save up to 188,000 lives of the half million deaths calculated until February, said the WHO, which also mentioned other measures such as tests, contact tracing, ventilation in closed spaces and distance physical.

“We must change our tactic from reacting to covid-19 outbreaks to preventing them from happening in the first place,” Kluge said.

The director of the WHO in Europe also highlighted as a key factor the spread of the Delta variant, a version of the virus much more transmissible than the original; although those vaccinated are much more protected from developing the disease in a serious way, the agency insisted.

Advisor and specialist in occupational hazards

Source From: Ambito

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Latest Posts