WHO Issues Warning Against Rising COVID Rates in Europe

The World Health Organization issued a warning Thursday about rising Covid cases and deaths in Europe. 

Over the past week, there were 1.8 million new Covid cases and 24,000 deaths across Europe. This accounts for nearly 60 percent of global cases, and nearly half of the world’s deaths. 

WHO Europe chief Dr. Hans Kluge warned that if Europe stays on its current trajectory, there could be half a million more deaths in Europe and Central Asia by the beginning of February 2022. 

Kluge said that the world is at another critical point of Covid resurgence, and that Europe is at the epicenter of the pandemic, where it also was a year ago. 

Public Health officials attribute the looming fourth wave to low vaccination rates in some areas, combined with the contagiousness of the Delta variant, and a relaxation of public mitigation efforts such as masking, social distancing, and hand washing. 

Kluge said that if 95 percent of Europeans wore masks in public, 188,000 lives could be saved over the next three months. 

Of the 53 countries in the WHO European region, eight have vaccinated more than 70 percent of the population. Two have vaccinated less than 10 percent. The worst outbreaks are in Russia and Ukraine, as well as locations in Central and Eastern Europe with low vaccination rates. 

Trieste, Italy, is home to one of Europe’s most worrying spikes. 

The Italian government introduced Europe’s toughest and most expansive health pass in October. The city of Trieste led a resistance against the measures, with people coming to protest the measure. Now, two weeks later, there is a Covid outbreak that stems from Trieste, making the city a Covid hot spot.

The region’s top epidemiologist Dr. Fabio Barbone said that the situation in Trieste is particularly worrying. The region’s president Massimiliano Fedriga was more blunt, saying, “Enough idiocy.” 

Experts have said that the outbreak is showing how an unvaccinated minority can still threaten the greater public health and how difficult it can be to bring vaccine resisters into the fold.