Risk of new wave of coronavirus in Europe in winter – “False sense of security”

A new wave of covid-19 looms in Europe as the weather turns colder, with public health experts warning that vaccine fatigue and confusion about the different types of vaccines on offer could limit the number of people getting a booster.

The B4/5 Omicron subvariants that dominated over the summer are still responsible for the majority of cases, but newer Omicron subvariants are gaining ground. Hundreds of new strains of Omicron are being identified by scientists, World Health Organization (WHO) officials announced this week.

Figures released by the WHO late on Wednesday showed that the number of cases in the EU reached 1.5 million last week, an 8% increase on the week of September 19 to 25, despite a dramatic drop in testing.

Globally, the number of cases continues to decrease. The number of hospitalizations in many of the 27 EU countries as well as Britain has also increased in recent weeks.

Hospital admissions with covid-19 symptoms rose by almost 32% in Italy in the week ending October 4, while admissions to intensive care units rose by 21% compared to the previous week, according to data from independent research institute Gimbe. .

During the same week, hospitalizations due to covid-19 in Britain increased by 45% compared to the previous one.

Omicron’s B1 and B4/5 substrain-adapted covid vaccines are available in Europe from September, together with the first-generation vaccines. Only B1 vaccines are approved in Britain.

Moreover, the European and British authorities recommend these vaccines as booster doses only for specific groups, such as the elderly and the immunocompromised. Things get more complicated as there is a “choice” of vaccine that one can receive as a booster dose.

But also the willingness of citizens to be vaccinated one more time, fourth or even fifth for some, is decreasing.

“For those who may be less concerned about the risks they face, the message that the pandemic is over combined with the absence of a major information campaign may reduce vaccination rates,” commented Martin McKee, professor of European public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

A false sense of security

“So I’m worried that the vaccination rate will be quite a bit lower,” he added.

“Another confounding element is that quite a large part of the population has contracted covid in recent months,” said Penny Ward, professor of pharmacology at King’s College.

Some perhaps they believe wrongly that if they have completed their basic vaccination and then become sick with covid, they are immune, he explained.

Since September 5, when the new vaccines began to be made available in the EU, around 40 million doses from Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna have been made available to member countries, according to data from the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).

However, the weekly number of doses administered in the EU ranged between one and 1.4 million in September, compared with 6-10 million per week in the same period last year.

Perhaps the biggest challenge is to counter the perception that the pandemic is over, which creates a false sense of security.

The Gimbe Foundation has complained that the soon-to-be-changed Italian government has not properly prepared for the autumn and winter period, while underlining that a report on the government’s handling of the pandemic has been prevented from being published.

Meanwhile, British officials warned last week that the outbreak of flu and the rise in covid-19 cases were already putting pressure on the public health system.

RES-EMP

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