On the weekend, in the first weeks of November, when many people are already shopping for Christmas, it is easy to forget that there is a highly contagious virus that continues to infect hundreds of people every day in Portugal and thousands in several European countries. The old normality, with the exception of the masks here we still often wear in busier places, has returned to everyday life, but across Europe, governments are having to rethink the freedoms they have given their citizens as the vaccination process has been accelerating and protecting every age group. …
In the Netherlands, confinement returned this Saturday, albeit less harshly, and in Germany, health officials in the worst-affected states have argued that control over large gatherings should be returned.
Starting Monday in Berlin, only people who have been vaccinated or recently recovered will be able to visit restaurants, cinemas and hairdressers. Federal Minister of Health Jens Spahn on Friday proposed similar rules for admission to public events.
Austria, which has the lowest vaccination rate of any Western European country (62.8%), announced on Friday that it would introduce imprisonment rules for those who are not vaccinated, and Germany also said it would not only ban unvaccinated people from accessing certain activities and places such as the new teleworking law, which is due to go into effect soon, will “strongly encourage” employers to request tests or vaccinations from those who do not want to continue working from home.
Christmas, especially in northern and central Europe, where the tradition of Christmas markets gives life to towns and villages for more than a month, and in the middle of winter it will certainly lose some of its glitz and fun, because, as I said, the Saxony State price list Minister Michael Kretschmer: “We cannot imagine drinking mulled wine on the street while hospitals are clogged and drain resources.”
The World Health Organization has already warned that Europe is the epicenter of this new wave, and there are figures from WHO itself to support this. Infections rose 7% last week and deaths 10%, making Europe the only region in the world with a steady increase in the number of cases and deaths, and this is not just in one country and is not a daily anomaly. Nearly two-thirds of new infections – about 1.9 million – have occurred in Europe, making this week the sixth consecutive week that the spread of the virus has increased across the continent.
The measures introduced by the Netherlands may be a preliminary indication of what other countries expect when infection rates reach levels that put national health services at risk. The first restrictions will most likely not be as restrictive as the ones that were imposed on us in 2020, but non-essential stores and restaurants closed earlier (18:00 and 20:00 respectively in the case of the Netherlands), and refund of restrictions on home fees will be essential to reduce contamination during the most critical months.
Countries with the highest vaccination rates, such as Portugal, Spain and Malta, have fewer cases, hospitalizations and deaths, but the numbers are nonetheless growing slowly. This is nothing compared to the very serious situation that has already developed in the east, for example, in Bulgaria, Serbia or Romania, where for almost two months doctors have been struggling with the resistance of this fifth wave.
Vaccinations are lower than in most Western European countries, and some leaders are reluctant to go back to prison times. Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic said last month that she does not believe in Spartan restrictions. “I don’t believe in measures like those that existed before vaccination. Then why do we have vaccines? “, – he said. quoted by Associated Press…
Doctors think differently because they never saw a vaccine as the end of a pandemic. TO Diary “Guardian”Hans Kluge, WHO Regional Director for Europe, opposed the idea of total freedom put forward by politicians after the vaccine was created: “The idea has always been this: you can do whatever you want. Vaccines do what they promised to prevent severe disease, especially deaths, but they are our most powerful weapon only when used in conjunction with preventive measures. ” Bulgaria and Romania are members of the European Union, and the vaccination rate in both countries cannot prevent chaos in hospitals: only 23% of Bulgarians have been fully vaccinated, while among Romanians this figure rises slightly to 35%. In Romania, the curfew runs from 22:00 to 5:00, but the number of infections has decreased very little.