Optimism is spreading in the US as Covid-19 deaths decline and states ease restrictions and open vaccinations for younger adults. But across Europe, the fear is hitting another wave of infections, closing schools and cafes and closing new ones.
The divergent paths of the pandemic on the two continents can be partly linked to a much faster roll-out of vaccines in the US and a greater spread of infectious variants in Europe.
However, health experts in the US say that what is happening in Europe should be a warning against the advance of precautionary measures, as many of the same variants are already spreading at lower levels in the US.
“Each of these countries has more or less the same as we have now, and each has taken an upward trend after abandoning known mitigation strategies,” said Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). ). “They just took the eye off the ball.”
The result has been a sharp increase in new infections and hospitalizations in several European countries over the past few weeks.
Poland’s number of new Covid-19 cases has more than doubled since February, hampering its healthcare system and leading to a nationwide three-week exclusion announced Wednesday for shopping malls, theaters, galleries and sports centers.
Earlier this week, Italy closed most of its classrooms and expanded areas where restaurants and cafes could only pick up or drop off. The country’s health experts say they are seeing an increasing number of patients who are middle-aged and younger.
In France, officials have closed weekends around the French Riviera in the south and the English Channel in the north, and they are preparing new restrictions for the Paris region and perhaps beyond. Covid-19 patients occupy 100% of the standard intensive care hospital beds in the vicinity of the country’s capital.
Serbia announced a nationwide exclusion for the rest of the week and closed all non-essential stores and businesses. The country with 7 million people reported more than 5,000 new cases on Tuesday, the highest number in months.
By comparison, new infections and hospitalizations are declining in the US, even though the country has suffered the worst death toll in the world. More than 537,000 Americans have died since the pandemic began.
Deaths in the U.S. dropped to an average of just under 1,300 a day, up from a peak of about 3,400 in January. At the same time, about 55,000 people a day are just infected, a much lower percentage than the quarter of a million people infected in early January.
Yet it appears that new infections and hospitalizations have reached a plateau that was only slightly lower than the peak of infections in the summer of 2020, a time when the coronavirus covered much of the Sun Belt, from Florida to southern California. , seized.
“Every time we reach a new and unprecedented increase in this epidemic, we normalize it quickly,” Kumi Smith, an epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota, told Vox.
Furthermore, Texas and Mississippi have revoked mask mandates and capacity constraints in most of public life, even though variants that have seized Europe are known to spread there. Meanwhile, airlines have had their best weeks since the pandemic began, saying more people are booking flights for spring and summer.
“Vaccination without speed limit, 24/7, this is what we are going to protect against what is happening in Europe,” said Dr Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Safety in Baltimore, Maryland.
Adalja said he believes it is too early for states to abandon mask mandates, but that restaurants and other places could gradually start to increase. “You don’t have to do what Texas did,” Adalja said. “You can increase the capacity while holding the masks in place.”
The vaccination of the European Union lagged far behind that of Britain and the USA due to shortages of vaccines and other obstacles. About one in five people in the US has received at least one vaccine dose, while in most European countries it is less than one in ten. Of three authorized vaccines in the US, two require a two-dose regimen.
Josh Michaud, co-director of global health policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation in Washington, said Europe was a “rapid easing of distance needs in many places, along with populations that failed while watching the light at the end” of the long pandemic tunnel, helped set the stage for the current surges ”.
Several European countries have also suspended use of AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine, including Germany, France, Spain and Italy. The US has not approved the AstraZeneca vaccine, although it controversially contains a 100 million dose purchase agreement.
Joe Biden urges all countries to lift vaccine admission requirements by 1 May. By removing the admission requirements, almost all adults and children older than 16 can be vaccinated. The majority of vaccine doses purchased by the federal government are expected to be delivered in early July.
Although cases remain high, the spread of the vaccine available and the declining infection rates have led to cautious optimism and a renewed sense of hope in the US.
An empty hallway and a row of unused face screens in the closed Covid-19 intensive care unit at Mission Hospital in Mission Viejo, California, tell the story of the improved prospects. At the beginning of the year, the wing was full of Covid-19 patients.
“It gives me chicken,” said Christina Anderson, an ICU nurse. “It’s really just surreal, because we know a month and a half ago our unit was full of super-super-sick Covid patients, many of whom did not survive.”