Covid: These ten EU countries in a “very worrying” situation – The HuffPost

Flourish / HuffPost

MAP – In Europe, Covid-19 contaminations are soaring again, to the point that several countries are reinstating restrictions. Austria wishes for example confine unvaccinated people or not cured of the coronavirus and the Netherlands announced in the evening new restrictive measures for three weeks.

The situation is even considered “very worrying” in ten countries of the European Union and “worrying” in ten others, said this Friday, November 12th. the European disease agency.

“The epidemiological situation in the EU is currently characterized by a rapid and significant increase in cases and a low but slowly rising mortality rate”, summarizes the European Center for Disease Control (ECDC) in its latest risk assessment.

“Cases, hospitalizations and death toll are all expected to increase over the next two weeks,” said the Stockholm-based European agency.

Among the 27, Belgium, Poland, the Netherlands, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Hungary and Slovenia are in the highest category of concern, as you can see in the map above.

Restrictive measures

Countries in the “worrying” category include Germany, Austria, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Romania and Slovakia.

Across the Rhine in particular, the authorities on Thursday recorded a record number of new infections in covid-19 with 50,196 additional cases in 24 hours, according to the Robert Koch health watch institute, a bar never before reached. Länders have already banned certain public places such as restaurants for unvaccinated people.

Three countries are in the “moderate worry” category (France, Portugal, Cyprus) while four countries are in low concern (Italy, Spain, Sweden and Malta).

The method used by the ECDC for the categories of concern combines the absolute values ​​(number of cases, hospitalizations and deaths) but also their recent evolution.

According to its latest projections, the number of cases and deaths is expected to increase by around 50% over the next two weeks, reaching a weekly rate of 300 new cases and 2.7 deaths per 100,000 population.

For the three other non-EU countries monitored by the agency (Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein), the situation is considered “worrying”.

Distinctions between countries

“We must distinguish the countries that are facing a kind of wave, from Ireland to the United Kingdom through the Benelux countries, Germany, Austria, Romania and Russia”, detailsAFP the epidemiologist at the Free University of Brussels (ULB), Yves Coppieters.

Among these countries, there are those like the United Kingdom, “where the curve of hospitalizations does not follow that of contaminations thanks to vaccination”, and the countries of Eastern Europe, little vaccinated, where it is. less so.

“In countries like Spain and Portugal, extremely well vaccinated, or Italy, which has taken strong measures, the rebound is not yet very visible,” he says.

“France is a bit between two: the resumption of contaminations is real but less strong”, continues the epidemiologist.

In order to fight against the pandemic, WHO called last week to continue vaccination, to massively use masks and to practice social distancing measures.