The European Center for Disease Control (ECDC) released on Wednesday (24) a warning of “very high” risk of Covid in December and January on the continent, if there is no increase in vaccination and intensification of public prevention policies.
According to the agency’s director, Andrea Ammon, immunization campaigns were successful in reducing hospitalizations and deaths this year, “but there are still subpopulations and age groups in which coverage remains lower than desired, even in countries that have achieved good coverage. vaccination policy”.
She says that European countries need to “urgently focus on closing this immunity gap, offering booster doses to all adults and reintroducing non-pharmaceutical measures” such as wearing face masks and physical distance.
According to a survey by the center, until the first week of this month, mask use was mandatory in all public spaces in only 3 of the 30 countries — Cyprus, Czech Republic and Romania. In another 12, the obligation is restricted to closed spaces. Half of the countries do not require the use of face protection.
Since October, Latvia, the Netherlands and Austria have reimposed temporary confinements, with remote work and non-essential trade closures, to reduce circulation. Germany, Italy and France are some of the European countries that have lifted restrictions for non-completely immunized residents.
The risk increases with the holiday season, says Andrea, as travel and meetings indoors intensify.
By mid-November, 65.5% of the total population and 76.5% of adults in the 30 countries followed by ECDC (the European Union’s 27 plus Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein) had taken all the necessary doses of vaccine.
If protection is not increased, the center’s analysis models predict a large number of admissions by Covid of unvaccinated individuals, especially those from risk groups, for having diseases that reduce their ability to fight infections.
ECDC also recommends giving a booster dose of the vaccine to all adults aged 18 and over, with priority given to those over 40. The objective is to compensate for the loss of protection of immunizers against contagion, reducing the potential for transmission.
The booster dose is recommended at least six months after completing the primary regimen — Italy, however, has announced that it will shorten this interval to five months.
ECDC data show that hospitalizations and ICU admissions for Covid have increased since October in most countries followed, after a decline in August and September 2021.
“This was driven by the circulation of the delta variant in populations that were not satisfactorily vaccinated and after a general relaxation of non-pharmaceutical interventions,” says the report published on Wednesday.
Although the most recent figures show that the death rate from the disease is generally lower in countries with higher percentages of immunized, the ECDC says there is evidence of an increase in the burden of Sars-Cov-2 even among the countries with the highest acceptance. .
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