The COVID numbers for Europe are looking extremely serious. Countries throughout Europe are reporting large increases in numbers of infections from roughly the start of November.
According to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, big spikes in infections are across the board in Europe. Germany is the hardest hit, with extraordinary increases in case numbers suddenly hitting medical resources and hospitalization capacities. 65,000 new cases were recorded on Thursday alone.
Germany is literally “the crossroads of Europe” and the central hub of travel, road and rail distribution throughout the region. That’s not a good scenario for future spread.
Germany, however, is definitely not the whole story. Eastern Europe is clearly on the receiving end of the new wave. Johns Hopkins figures also indicate that infections are spiking rapidly upward in Ukraine, Poland, Greece, and the Netherlands. Spain and Italy do not show spikes in infections to date.
In the UK, infection numbers remain stolidly high. The UK death rate is currently recorded as 4355 in the last 28 days. A big spike in new vaccinations is also adding statistical fodder for the headlines, if not much clarity regarding the infection rate. The UK’s fourth wave looks remarkably like a continuation of the previous wave statistically.
What’s gone wrong? How is the virus spreading, and from where to where?
The complexity of the issues raised by this new wave needs some understanding. If the European wave is the Delta strain, which is now recorded as 99.7% of sequenced tests by the WHO, it’s taken a while to get going. There were three prior surges in infections in Germany in 2020, the most recent being in May this year, before the current spike starting from the end of October.
The history of the spread of the virus also varies quite a lot. Different countries can generate very different statistical profiles for COVID. Some countries like Russia are very consistent, with high infection rates ongoing. Russia had a brief 3 month period of relatively low infections this year, followed by two surges in infection rates.
This situation sends a pretty mixed message about “proximity threats”. The Russian infection rates don’t seem to mirror adjoining countries, for example. Poland’s statistics look nothing at all like Russia’s, but do resemble Ukraine’s.
So the movement of the virus has to be based on a mix of factors, from local infections to incoming cases from other countries. In integrated, joined-at-the-hip Europe, that’s a possible problem. Nobody wants to think the virus is tied to the Schengen Area, for example.
The good news is that it pretty obviously isn’t. Romania and Bulgaria, outside the Schengen Area, have very similar spikes to Germany. While there is a lot of commerce and travel, the virus seems to have struck the same way at the same time.
This is just theory and speculation, obviously; but not having a clear route of movement of these waves is a critical problem. The need is to pin down infection spikes at origin to prevent spread.
The current theory is that unvaccinated people are the main cause of the new wave. Vaccination throughout Europe has varied from country to country. The European Medicines Agency has said that nations need to close the gap.
That doesn’t quite explain the highly-vaccinated UK’s current wave, though. Brexit or no Brexit, the UK was quick to immunize, but the infection rate is stubbornly consistent. If unvaccinated people were the sole cause, you’d expect the UK to be doing better.
There’s also a very annoying political factor. Various countries, notably Germany, have had anti-lockdown protests and a clear percentage of people who were also anti-vax. That does explain some of the national discrepancies if you’re prepared to believe enough people weren’t vaccinated to deliver this sort of massive increase in infection rates.
That doesn’t quite get by as a credible reason, though. Germany is also highly vaccinated, (very) roughly similar to the UK. 116,200,713 doses have been administered to date. The population of Germany is 83.24 million.
That’s NOT a 100% double vax rate, obviously. It’s roughly about a 60-something percentage rate. Yet the infections suddenly started to climb at the end of October? Why? The vaccination rate would have been lower previously. Seasonal change? That’s predictable; but the spike is huge. Add to this the fact that going into lockdown every few months isn’t likely to be cheap.
There’s obviously a lot to learn about how, why, and when this virus spreads the way it does. The fact is that the world’s biggest economic bloc is likely to go back into lockdown, and soon.
