A “bell” for the early lifting of measures against the coronavirus rang today, Tuesday, by the World Health Organization. Many European countries, including Germany, France, Italy and the United Kingdom, the measures were too abrupt against Covid and are facing a clear increase in cases of sub-variant BA.2, said today the director of the European department of the WHO Hans Kluge.
During a press conference in Moldova, Hans Kluge said he was “on alert” for the epidemiological situation on the European continent, but added that he remained “optimistic”. The number of Covid cases is currently rising in 18 of the 53 countries in the WHO Europe, according to the agency.
“The countries in which we record a particular increase are United Kingdom, Ireland, Greece, Cyprus, France, Italy and Germany“, he said.
“These countries were abruptly shifting from the level of ‘excessive’ to the level of ‘inadequate,'” said Hans Klugge.
According to the WHO, the number of new cases in Europe had clearly decreased since the peak in January, but has been increasing since the beginning of March.
According to epidemiologists, this increase is mainly explained by the prevalence of the Omicron BA.2 sub-variant, which is about 30% more contagious – but not more dangerous than its predecessor, BA.1.
Four priorities
Over the last seven days, more than 5.1 million new cases and 12,496 deaths have been reported in the WHO Europe area, bringing the total number of reported cases since the outbreak to 194.4 million and the death toll to more than 1.92 million.
The fifth wave in Europe is not coming to an end and experts criticize the “laxity” of policies across Europe, which are already accused of hastening the lifting of restrictive measures during the previous epidemic waves.
“At the moment I am optimistic, but on the alert,” said Hans Klugge.
The positive element is that “there is a great deal of immunity “… either thanks to the vaccination or thanks to the disease”, he said.
Then, “winter is over and so people will be less crowded in confined spaces.”
And finally, the Omicron variant “is less contagious in people who are fully vaccinated and have received a booster dose,” even if “in low-vaccination countries, it remains a deadly disease,” said Hans Kluge.
“We will have to live with Covid for a while, but that does not mean we can not get rid of the pandemic,” he said.
We must therefore maintain four priorities: “protecting the vulnerable”, “strengthening surveillance and sequencing”, “giving more countries access to new antiviral drugs” and “tackling post covid and long covid”.
Hans Klugge on SKAI
He described it as a given appearance of a new variant of the coronavirus The Hans Klügespeaking Monday at meridian news bulletin of and to Eva Antonopoulou.
Dr. Kluge stressed the appearance of a new mutation should not be a cause for concern as long as people continue to do the right thing, with particular reference to, among other things, protecting vulnerable groups but also restoring restrictive measures if deemed necessary.
The WHO director for Europe also spoke of a calm summer, but not as he said in the event that countries go from “everything” to “nothing”.
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