Pandemic could cause another 300,000 deaths due to Covid-19 in Europe, according to a new study based on estimates of the number of people in 19 European countries (including Greece) who had not even been vaccinated by early November against the coronavirus nor had they become ill and therefore have no immunity.
The model also predicts that the pandemic could lead to an estimated one million more hospitalizations in Europe, a number that largely explains the predicted high death toll. This is a bad scenario, but it could become a reality, according to researchers, if precautionary policies are lifted prematurely and citizens return en masse to their old habits.
The study estimates that the countries with the highest percentage of people at risk of Covid-19 are those with the lowest vaccination rates, the highest proportion of the elderly (especially the unvaccinated) and the lowest proportion of people already infected with coronavirus. According to him, Greece is one of these high-risk countries, along with Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, Finland and Slovenia.
It is estimated that there may be large differences from country to country: For example, in Romania, where the vaccinated population is still very low, 840 per 100,000 people may need Covid-19 treatment in the future, while in Britain only 62 per 100,000 . In absolute numbers, in Germany, which has a high proportion of older people, around 280,000 people can end up in hospital, compared to only 6,300 in Denmark.
The discrepancy is also large in terms of the maximum possible future deaths, both in proportion (from 19 per 100,000 people in Britain to 360 per 100,000 in Romania) and in absolute numbers (from 1,200 in Slovenia to 115,000 in Germany).
However, epidemiologists-infectious disease specialists at the London School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, led by Dr. Lloyd Chapman and Adam Kucharski, who strong scenario, according to which all restrictions have been lifted and people are free to come into contact as before a pandemic, so that everyone in the population could potentially become infected, which is rather unlikely.
Nevertheless, the study rings like a “bell” that the difficulties are not over. The analysis sends a warning that even if a country has high vaccination coverage, there may still be waves of hospitalizations and deaths, even if there are no new, more contagious coronavirus strains in the future (which cannot be ruled out).
“The numbers are shocking and, whether they happen or not, people need to know that Covid-19 is not over,” said Cheryl Chang, an infectious disease modeling specialist at the University of Sydney.
Covid-19, after successive epidemic waves, has killed more than 1.43 million people in Europe. On the other hand, around 315 million Europeans have received at least one dose of coronavirus vaccine.
The British researchers stressed that in countries facing a threat of a serious wave of illness and death, vaccination efforts should be intensified on the one hand and non-pharmaceutical interventions continued (eg mask use) on the other.
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