A nurse is adjusting her PPE in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of St George’s Hospital in Tooting, south-west London, where the number of intensive care beds for critically ill patients has had to increase from 60 to 120, the vast majority of whom are coronavirus patients.
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LONDON – The World Health Organization warned on Thursday of a critical point in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic, amid growing fears of several infectious variants of the virus, which have led to a rapid rise in infections.
Countries are struggling to contain two variants found in the UK and South Africa that are significantly more transmissible, with public health experts worried about the potential impact on inoculation efforts.
Certainly, while variants spread more easily, there is no clear evidence that mutant viruses are associated with more severe disease outcomes. But being more transmissible means that more people can become infected, and this could mean more serious infections and more deaths.
In recent weeks, optimism about the mass launch of Covid-19 vaccines appears to have been tempered by the resurgence of the virus.
“We have been prepared for a challenging start to 2021 and that was all,” said Dr. Hans Kluge, WHO’s regional director for Europe, in an online press briefing.
“This is a high point during the pandemic where science, politics, technology and values must form a united front to push back this persistent and elusive virus.”
“We are very much in awe”
One year after the health agency’s first report on Covid-19, Kluge reflected that the WHO European region had 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 in a bid to ease pressure on already strained 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 over 25% of them reported “very high” incidence rates and strained health systems.
“I have to say that we are very thick at the moment. Not only are we thickened, but we are probably in the European region in the most acute phase of transmission and we continue to see a very big impact on the wards.” said Dr. Catherine Smallwood, senior emergency officer at WHO Europe, during the online meeting.
“To start changing any of these, we need to reduce transmission and we need to control the spread despite the launch of vaccinations,” Smallwood said.
The European Commission on Wednesday gave final approval for the use of the Covid vaccine developed by the American company Moderna.
It was the second vaccine to be approved by the EU’s executive arm, the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was previously given the green light.
The EU, which began its vaccination program on December 27, has been criticized for the slow launch of strikes across the bloc.
It is trying to catch up with Israel and the United States, where a large number of people have already received an inoculation against the virus.
To date, Europe has recorded 27.5 million confirmed Covid cases and 603,563 associated deaths, according to WHO data.