Covid, in Europe it could cost another 300 thousand deaths: study

Covid in Europe, in the worst-case scenario ever, the coronavirus pandemic could cost another 300,000 deaths. This is the number of victims hypothesized by a study, based on a model that counts the number of people in 19 countries who have not been infected or vaccinated. The unprotected. The analysis, available in a preprint version on ‘MedRxiv’ and not yet peer-reviewed, is being relaunched by ‘Nature’ online. The one calculated – the authors specify, experts from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine – is a maximum number, based on the worst picture, that is, assuming that all anti-contagion restrictions are lifted and contacts between individuals return to pre-Covid levels. The models contained in the work also predict that the pandemic could lead to approximately one million hospitalizations at the European level. Beyond the precise number, the analysis results suggest that the impending toll of SARS-CoV-2 infections could be quite severe in Europe, and likely elsewhere, explains Henrik Salje, an infectious disease epidemiologist at Cambridge University. in the UK, not involved in the study and cited by Nature. But the figures are to be interpreted with caution, he stresses, because the analysis assumes that everyone in the population will be exposed, thus “an extreme worst case scenario”. The study can be taken, however, as a useful exercise to help countries prepare for future challenges, says Sheryl Chang, University of Sydney in Australia. “The numbers are shocking and may or may not happen, but people need to be aware that Covid-19 isn’t over,” he warns.