COVID-19 resurgence puts Europe in bind
Countries confronting worrisome second wave
MILAN — Doctors are warning that Europe is at a turning point as the coronavirus surges back across the Continent, including among vulnerable people, and governments try to impose restrictions without locking down whole economies.
With the number of newly confirmed cases reaching records, the World Health Organization warned on Friday that intensive care units in a number of European cities could reach maximum capacity in the coming weeks.
In response to the surge, the Czech Republic has shut schools and is building a field hospital, Poland has limited restaurant hours and closed gyms and schools, and France is planning a 9 p.m. curfew in Paris and other big cities. In Britain, authorities are closing pubs and bars in areas in the country’s north while putting limits on socializing in London and other parts of the country.
Europe is not alone in seeing a resurgence. In the United States, the number of new cases per day is on the rise in 44 states, and the number of deaths per day is climbing in 30.
“If we don’t get a handle on this, we run the risk of getting into a situation that’s harder to control,” said Bertrand Levrat, the head of Switzerland’s biggest hospital complex. “We are really at a turning point. Things can go both ways.”
But while officials are sounding the alarm on the rising case numbers, they are also wary of imposing the stricter nationwide lockdowns that devastated their economies this spring. Instead, they are trying more targeted restrictions.
France is deploying 12,000 extra police to enforce its new curfew; Saturday night will be the first time establishments will be forced to close at 9 p.m. Restaurants, cinemas and theaters are trying to figure out how they can survive the forced early closures.
Italy has banned pickup sports and public gatherings following a period of relative grace after its particularly strict lockdown.
Massimo Galli, the director of infectious diseases at Milan’s Luigi Sacco hospital, said Italy’s surge is not the result of record testing, as policy-makers have suggested, but a sign of a real return among the population most at risk of developing serious illness if infected.
That is a worrying trend, since a tide of serious cases has the potential to swamp hospitals, and it’s one that can be seen in other countries on the Continent.
France, Spain and Britain recorded more than 300 infections per 100,000 residents over the past two weeks, compared with Italy’s quickening but relatively low 106.
The Czech Republic reported over 700 people infected per 100,000, and the country’s military will start to build a field hospital at Prague’s exhibition center this weekend. The government is also negotiating with neighboring Germany and some other countries for Czechs to be treated abroad if the health system can’t handle them.
At a press briefing Friday, Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’S technical lead on COVID-19, voiced concern about the rising numbers and said they were being accompanied by rising hospital admissions, including to ICUS.
But Van Kerkhove added that advancements in treatment and increased testing capacity put many countries in a better position than they were in a few months ago.