Virus cases soaring in 6 Eastern European nations
COPENHAGEN, Denmark — The head of the World Health Organization’s Europe office said Tuesday that health officials are turning their attention to growing rates of covid-19 infection in Eastern Europe, where six countries — including Russia and Ukraine — have seen a doubling in case counts over the past two weeks.
Dr. Hans Kluge said the 53-country region, which stretches to former Soviet republics into central Asia, has now tallied more than 165 million confirmed coronavirus cases and 1.8 million deaths linked to the pandemic, including 25,000 in the last week alone.
“Today, our focus is towards the east of the WHO European region,” Kluge said, pointing to a surge in the highly transmissible omicron variant. “Over the past two weeks, cases of COVID-19 have more than doubled in six countries in this part of the region (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, the Russian Federation, and Ukraine).”
“As anticipated, the omicron wave is moving east: 10 eastern Member States have now detected this variant,” he said.
Kluge sought to put an emphasis on improving vaccination rates, which have lagged in Eastern Europe compared to the rest of the region. He said less than 40% of people over age 60 in Bosnia, Bulgaria, Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan have completed been fully vaccinated against covid-19.
He called on governments and health officials “to closely examine the local reasons influencing lower vaccine demand and acceptance, and devise tailored interventions to increase vaccination rates urgently, based on the context-specific evidence.” He also said it was “not the moment to lift measures that we know work in reducing the spread of COVID-19.”
The WHO Europe chief also highlighted his “message of hope” — pointing to high levels of immunity through vaccination or recovery from infection, and the end of the winter season that causes many people to gather indoors, where the virus can spread more easily.
ELSEWHERE IN EUROPE
Elsewhere in Europe, while cases shot up in the Netherlands, intensive care unit admissions fell, allowing authorities to relax restrictions that had forced bars and restaurants to close over the Christmas holiday season.
The Dutch are following neighboring Belgium and other European nations in easing restrictions as the continent increasingly looks for ways of co-existing with the virus without the economic and social damage wreaked by lockdown measures.
Earlier Tuesday, the Dutch national public health institute said in its weekly update that new covid-19 cases declined by 22% over the past seven days and ICU admissions fell 28%.
“It looks like we are at or over the peak,” Kuipers said.
Kuipers said the restrictions would be eased in three steps.
With immediate effect, the government dropped its advice to always work from home and instead urged people to work from home half the time. It also scrapped its advice to restrict the number of visitors people allow into their homes to four per day.
Beginning Friday, bars, restaurants, theaters, cinemas and other public venues will be allowed to stay open until 1 a.m. instead of the current order to close at 10 p.m.
A week later, pre-pandemic opening hours will apply to all public venues and a covid-19 heal pass will no longer be necessary to get access to venues. Social distancing and mask mandates will be dropped with the exception of mask wearing on public transport and at airports.