A nurse adjusts her PPE to the ICU (Intensive Care Unit) at St George’s Hospital in Tooting, south-west London, where the number of intensive care beds for critically ill patients has had to be increased. 60 to 120, the vast majority of which are for coronavirus patients.
Victoria Jones – PA Images | Images PA | Getty Images
LONDON – The World Health Organization warned on Thursday of a turning point in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic, amid growing fears about more infectious variants of the virus that have led to a rapid rise in infections.
Countries are vying to contain two variants found in the UK and South Africa, which are significantly more transmissible, with public health experts anxious about the possible impact on inoculation efforts.
True, while variants spread more easily, there is no clear evidence that mutated viruses are associated with more serious disease outcomes. But being more communicable means more people can become infected and this can mean more serious infections and more fatalities.
In recent weeks, optimism about the mass deployment of Covid-19 vaccines appears to have been dampened by the rate of spread of the virus.
“We were ready for a challenging start to 2021 and it has been just that,” Dr Hans Kluge, WHO regional director for Europe, said at an online press conference.
“This moment represents a turning point in the course of the pandemic at which science, politics, technology and values must form a united front to push back this persistent and elusive virus.”
“We are very close”
A year after the health agency’s first report on Covid-19, Kluge reflected on the fact that the WHO European region recorded more than 26 million cases of Covid and more than 580,000 deaths in 2020.
Several European countries have imposed national blockade measures in recent days, and more are expected to follow suit next week to try to alleviate pressure on already tense health facilities.
View of an almost deserted city center on December 15, 2020 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Niels Wenstedt | BSR Agency | Getty Images News | Getty Images
As of Wednesday, almost half of all European countries and territories had a seven-day incidence of more than 150 new cases per 100,000 inhabitants. The WHO estimated that more than 25% of these reported “very high” incidence rates and tense health systems.
“I have to say that at the moment we are very close. Not only are we there, but we are probably in the European region in the most acute transmission phase and we continue to see (a) a really big impact on the rooms of the ‘hospital,’ said Dr Catherine Smallwood, a senior emergency officer at WHO Europe, during the online briefing.
“To start changing any of that, we really need to reduce transmission and we need to control the spread despite the release of vaccines,” Smallwood said.
On Wednesday, the European Commission finally approved the use of the Covid vaccine developed by the American firm Moderna.
It was the second vaccine approved by the EU executive arm, with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine previously given the green light.
The EU, which launched its vaccination program on December 27, has been criticized for the slow deployment of punctures across the bloc.
It is trying to catch up with Israel and the United States, where large numbers of people have already received inoculation against the virus.
To date, Europe has recorded 27.5 million confirmed Covid cases and 603,563 related deaths, according to data collected by the WHO.