Europe missed its chance to stop the third wave. The United States could be next

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On Monday, much of Italy, including the cities of Rome and Milan, entered strict lockdown again, while in Spain all regions except Madrid decided to restrict travel during the next Easter holidays. The German capital of Berlin has also ended its planned easing of its lockdown, citing a growing number of Covid-19 cases.

Critics say the new restrictions came too late and Europe’s current problems can be attributed to politicians too keen to start easing.

“The second wave did not end, the lockdown was interrupted too soon, to let people do their shopping for Christmas,” French epidemiologist Catherine Hill told CNN. She said infection levels remained at a high level. “Recently, admissions to intensive care units have [been increasing] regularly, and the situation is now critical in several regions of the country, including Greater Paris. “

A more contagious variant of the virus, known as B.1.1.7, appears to be the common culprit behind the chaos. New preliminary data published in the British Medical Journal suggests the strain, first detected last year in the UK, could also be more deadly.

Alessandro Grimaldi, director of infectious diseases at Salvatore Hospital in the Italian city of L’Aquila, told CNN that the new, more contagious variant had “been a game-changer,” adding that “inevitably, measures taken to prevent the infection must become more radical. “

The World Health Organization warned about this almost two months ago, when it became clear that the British variant was circulating in most of Europe. “Once it becomes dominant, it can impact the epidemic curve as a whole and lead to the need for a more restrictive approach to the public health and social measures that need to be in place, so that rates of transmission may decrease, “said WHO’s senior emergency officer. for Europe, said Catherine Smallwood at the time.

It has now happened. The German Center for Disease Control announced on March 10 that the British variant has become the dominant strain in Germany. The new variant is also responsible for the majority of new cases in France and Italy, according to health officials there. In Spain, B.1.1.7 is now the dominant strain in nine of the country’s 19 regions.

The worsening situation in Europe becomes a cautionary tale for the United States. The variant causing a new crisis across the continent is also spreading rapidly in the United States. The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has predicted that it will become the dominant strain in the United States by the end of this month or early April.

But there is another reason why American experts are worried about what is happening in Europe right now.

Germany, France, Italy and Spain have all avoided the huge spikes in infections that crippled the UK after the Christmas holidays. Their infection levels were either stable or showing signs of declining just a few weeks ago. As the vaccination rollout began, albeit slowly, across the continent, people began to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

But while the trends looked promising, the number of cases was still very high. And that became a major issue when the new wave started – making new lockdowns necessary, Grimaldi said.

“It’s not easy to do lockdowns, because of the economic desperation it brings … the lifestyle change it brings,” he said. “But they are essential in trying to stop the virus.”

He said data from a recent study from the University of Bologna showed that the most stringent lockdown measures, called “red zones” in Italy, are working – leading to a 91% drop in the number of people related to Covid. deaths.

A delay in deciding to impose lockdowns can be fatal. The Resolution Foundation, a British think tank, said on Thursday that an additional 27,000 people had died from Covid-19 because the government delayed the start of the country’s latest lockdown until January, despite evidence of a rapid increase in case in December.

A man walks near a closed bar in Piazza Vittorio in Turin on March 17, 2021.
U.S. public health officials fear the United States is heading in the same direction – with some states starting to ease security measures even as the number of cases remains high. “When you see a plateau as high as 60,000 cases a day, it’s a very vulnerable time to have a flare up, to come back up. This is exactly what has happened in Europe, ”Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told CNN.

He observed that after promising declines in Covid-19 numbers, some European countries “withdrew from public health measures,” leading to further peaks.

Mike Tildesley, an infectious disease modeling expert at the University of Warwick and science adviser to the UK government, said the slower roll-out of vaccines in many European countries means they face a higher risk of big waves of new cases. “Unfortunately, until countries move closer to collective immunity, we are likely to see waves of infection occurring as countries alternate between phases of lockdown,” he said.

Grimaldi said that if vaccination plays a major role in tackling the epidemic, it must go hand in hand with safety measures, because the more the virus continues to circulate in the population, the more likely it is to mutate more. “The virus will try to survive despite the vaccine, so lockdowns are really the only way to stop the virus from circulating,” he said.

Without a global vaccination plan, coronavirus variants could lead to countless deaths

A new model published in The Lancet on Thursday showed that vaccinations alone may not be enough to contain the outbreak, underscoring the need for a gradual easing of restrictions rather than reopening the big bang.

Hill, the French epidemiologist, added that testing must also remain a key part of the strategy. “To control the epidemic, you have to massively test the population to find and isolate carriers of the virus,” she said, highlighting the estimated 50% of infections caused by people who do not know what ‘they have Covid-19. .

The new wave of increasing cases is not confined to Europe. The number of cases has increased by 10% globally over the past week to more than 3 million new cases reported, according to the latest WHO situation report.

The number of new cases peaked in early January, but then declined for four straight weeks before rising in the past three weeks. The number of people dying is still on the decline and fell below 60,000 a week last week, the first time this has happened since early November.

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