Medical staff will work on November 16, 2021 in the intensive care unit with Covid 19 patients in a hospital in Freising near Munich.
CHRISTOF STACHE | AFP | Getty Images
LONDON – The recent wave of Covid-19 cases hits Europe with a vengeance as a number of countries record record numbers of daily infections, some bans and further restrictions on unvaccinated people.
Germany broke a new record on Thursday, reporting more than 65,000 new cases, with health officials warning the true number of cases could be two or three times as high.
In the neighboring Netherlands, more than 20,000 new cases were reported on Wednesday, a new record for the third day in a row, and in France, where a fifth wave of the pandemic is underway, the number of new cases topped the 20,000 mark on Wednesday , not reached a level since August 25, reported Reuters.
While the Netherlands and Austria have partial lockdowns, other countries are desperately trying to avoid implementing full or medium lockdown measures similar to 2020, given the economic damage they can do, and are opting for more Covid rules and Covid instead -Passports.
Belgium announced new Covid measures mandating work from home and the use of masks indoors, amid one of the sharpest increases in infections in Europe.
However, Belgian Prime Minister Alexander de Croo is keen to avoid another lockdown, telling CNBC’s Silvia Amaro on Wednesday that while there has been an increase in cases, it is not as dramatic as in previous waves thanks to widespread vaccination .
Nonetheless, he said, “the pressures are increasing in our hospitals, we need to be careful, but careful measures should enable us to avoid closing certain parts of our society or economy.”
Read more: Belgium announces new Covid restrictions but Prime Minister vows to avoid lockdown
Covid passports or passports are becoming the norm across Europe, indicating a person’s Covid status (whether one has been vaccinated or recovered from a virus). They are not without controversy, however, and such passes result in the segregation of more and more public spaces – from bars and cinemas to Christmas markets – with access granted to the vaccinated but restricted for the unvaccinated.
Merkel’s meeting
The outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel will meet with the 16 prime ministers of the country on Thursday to discuss the national reaction of her country to the situation described yesterday as a “dramatic” situation.
Germany’s federal states were largely free to determine their own Covid responses and public health measures, which led to different measures by the pandemic states, although the government has requested temporary powers to impose lockdowns and other restrictive measures in areas with high levels To enforce infection rates.
The state of emergency in Germany, which has enabled the government to better control public health, will expire on November 25th.
Some state health ministers have urged officials to extend the state of emergency (as it allows states to implement measures like bans or school closings), but the three parties currently negotiating the formation of a new government have agreed to the state of emergency next week to be phased out.
Read more: Merkel warns that the fourth wave of Covid will hit Germany “at full speed”
The new number of Covid cases on Thursday of 65,371 new cases is the first time since the pandemic began that the number has risen to over 60,000 in a single day, Deutsche Welle noted. It has also been reported that Lothar Wieler, the head of the state infectious disease agency at the Robert Koch Institute, said the true number of cases could be much higher.
“The underreporting of the real numbers is increasing,” said Wieler during an online discussion with Michael Kretschmer, the Prime Minister of Saxony with the highest seven-day incidence rate of Covid in Germany.
Wieler said he believed there were “two to three times as many” cases per day than were actually reported. “We are in an emergency. If you don’t see it, you’re making a big mistake,” he said on Wednesday.
Chancellor Angela Merkel will gesture to the weekly cabinet meeting on April 13, 2021 in the Chancellery in Berlin.
JOHN MACDOUGALL | AFP | Getty Images
That Germany is seeing such a sharp increase in cases is alarming, especially since the country has received widespread praise for its early strategy to deal with the Covid outbreak.
Widespread testing and tracking, as well as a modern health network, helped the country keep the number of deaths far lower than that of its neighbors, although that gap has narrowed. To date, there have been over 5.1 million cases of the virus and nearly 100,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University. For comparison, France has recorded over 7.3 million cases and just over 118,000 deaths.
