Day by day stories of recent coronavirus circumstances are rising in 18 European international locations, together with Britain, France, Germany and Italy, as a result of the authorities are enjoyable pandemic restrictions too rapidly, a senior World Well being Group official within the area mentioned on Tuesday.
The official — Dr. Hans Kluge, the group’s regional director for Europe — mentioned the rise in new circumstances was linked to the latest unfold of the extremely transmissible Omicron subvariant often called BA.2.
Relatively than take a gradual, measured method, Dr. Kluge mentioned, the 18 international locations “are lifting these restrictions brutally, from an excessive amount of to too few.”
Dr. Kluge famous that mortality from Covid-19 was nonetheless declining within the 18 international locations. Even so, he mentioned, the virus stays a lethal menace throughout the W.H.O.’s 53-country Europe area, which additionally contains Israel and all the former Soviet Union. Some 20,000 deaths associated to the coronavirus had been reported within the area final week, he mentioned.
International locations should get used to the virus remaining in circulation at some stage indefinitely, “however it doesn’t imply that we can’t eliminate the pandemic,” Dr. Kluge mentioned at a information convention. He spoke in Chisinau, the Moldovan capital, the place he met well being officers who’re coping with refugees fleeing the Russian invasion of neighboring Ukraine.
To convey the virus below management, he mentioned, international locations in Europe ought to shield people who find themselves particularly susceptible to the virus; strengthen their well being surveillance measures to detect new variants; make use of antiviral medicines that may drastically scale back the severity of the illness; and maintain “lengthy Covid” sufferers whose signs linger for weeks or months.