Earlier this month, the World Health Organization warned that Europe was once again the epicenter of the Covid-19 pandemic, saying it was the only region in the world where the number of cases was rising at an alarming rate. On Tuesday, WHO projected that Covid will kill 2.2 million people in Europe by next spring. It said there are three main factors driving the current high transmission rate: The European Region is “Delta dominant,” insufficient vaccination coverage, and the rather early and abrupt easing of restrictions.
Health experts said the fourth wave of Covid-19 in Europe is getting worse because millions of Europeans are still unvaccinated, and many of them are behaving as if the pandemic is over.
From the Associated Press: “Germany’s health minister said Monday that the rapid rise in coronavirus cases means it’s likely everyone in the country who isn’t vaccinated will have caught Covid-19 by the end of the winter—and some of those will die. Official figures Monday showed more than 30,000 newly confirmed cases in Germany over the past 24 hours—an increase of about 50 percent compared to one week ago. The country is expected this week to pass 100,000 coronavirus-related deaths since the start of the pandemic.”
Unrest is spreading in Europe as Covid lockdowns return. Protest marches that bring tens of thousands of the unvaccinated from Croatia to Italy, from Austria to Belgium and the Netherlands, all had one message from a Covid-weary crowd—we’ve had enough!
European Union officials made clear on Monday that a return to bygone days was still out of the question and that the violence at some of the marches was counterproductive, according to an AP report. Calling those who abused the protests to foment violence “idiots”, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte condemned rioters in Rotterdam and across the Netherlands after Covid protests there and in Brussels descended into violence amid simmering anger at lockdown measures being put into place in an attempt to rein in soaring infections.
In Austria, the government announced a 10-day nationwide lockdown on Friday as the average daily Covid deaths tripled in recent weeks and hospitals in hard-hit states warned that intensive care units were hitting capacity. Health Minister Wolfgang Mueckstein said the lockdown was needed to bring down the number of new daily infections, which have spiked to as high as 15,000 a day, and to reduce the number of virus patients in intensive care. But most of all, he said, it was needed to bring relief “to the people who work in this sector, the nurses and doctors who cannot take it anymore.”
Austria also pledged to be the first European country to mandate vaccines beginning February 1. The country has one of the lowest vaccination rates in Western Europe, about 66 percent of its population of 8.9 million people, with a vocal minority who refuse to be inoculated.
There are valuable lessons we can learn from Europe’s fourth wave of Covid infections: Unvaccinated citizens remain a risk to the whole community. Places where inoculation rates are low can become hot spots because they give the virus so many vulnerable hosts to attack. “Large numbers of unvaccinated people do make variants more likely,” said Christopher Martin, a professor of public health at West Virginia University. “Each of us remains at risk so long as there are large numbers of unvaccinated people anywhere in the world.”
Scientific evidence shows that increased vaccinations help contain infections and avoid more Covid deaths. The Philippines has vaccinated about 36 percent of the country’s population. Hopefully, the three-day nationwide vaccination drive from November 29 to December 1 can exponentially increase the country’s vaccination rate. We have a long way to go to attain herd immunity. Scientists initially estimated that 70 percent of the population needed to acquire resistance to the coronavirus to banish it. The DOH said health experts have recommended that government raise the target to “up to 90 percent” from the initial 70 percent because the new Covid variants have lowered the efficacy of available vaccines.
Government needs to roll out more nationwide vaccination drives to protect citizens from Covid infection and probable death. Amid the pandemic, three words can help us in our efforts to save our livelihoods and spur economic growth—vaccinate, vaccinate, vaccinate.