Europe scrambles to shore up health care

THE HAGUE, NETHERLANDS >> Troops have been deployed to London hospitals. Health care workers infected with COVID-19 are treating patients in France. The Netherlands is under a lockdown, and tented field hospitals have gone up in Sicily.

Nations across Europe are scrambling to prop up health systems strained by staff shortages blamed on the new, highly transmissible omicron variant of the coronavirus, which is sending a wave of infections crashing over the continent.

“Omicron means more patients to treat and fewer staff to treat them,” Stephen Powis, national medical director at Britain’s National Health Service, said Friday.

The World Health Organization said Thursday that a record 9.5 million COVID-19 cases were tallied globally over the last week, a 71% increase from the previous seven-day period. However, the number of weekly recorded deaths declined.

While omicron seems less severe than the delta variant it has swiftly replaced, especially among people who have been vaccinated, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus cautioned against treating it lightly.

“Just like previous variants, omicron is hospitalizing people, and it’s killing people,” he said. “In fact, the tsunami of cases is so huge and quick that it is overwhelming health systems around the world.”

That was evident Friday in London, where some 200 military personnel, including 40 medics, were being deployed to hospitals struggling to deliver vital care amid “exceptional” staff shortages blamed on the number of workers who are ill or isolating because of COVID-19. Next week, another 150 troops will help an ambulance service in northwest England.

On a visit to King’s College Hospital London, Health Secretary Sajid Javid warned that hospital admissions were rising and that the NHS was facing a “rocky few weeks ahead.”

A total of 39,142 NHS staff members at hospital trusts in England were absent for COVID-19 reasons on Jan. 2, up 59% from the previous week, according to figures released by the National Health Service in England.

The U.K. also has changed its coronavirus testing rules to reduce the amount of time people who test positive have to isolate.

Germany’s leaders agreed Friday to toughen requirements for entry to restaurants and bars, and decided to shorten quarantine and self-isolation periods.

French authorities this week began allowing health care workers who are infected with the coronavirus but have few or no symptoms to keep treating patients rather than selfisolate.

France announced a staggering 332,252 daily virus cases on Wednesday, Europe’s highest-ever single-day confirmed infection count.

The Netherlands has been in a strict lockdown for weeks, a move designed to ease pressure on overburdened hospitals and buy time for a slow-starting vaccination booster campaign to gather pace. Despite the lockdown, infections hit record numbers in the country this week.

In Palermo, Sicily, auxiliary facilities were set up in front of three hospitals to relieve the pressure on emergency rooms and to allow ambulance crews to get patients into beds instead of waiting in the parking lot.

Staff in white medical overalls and masks pushed gurneys from ambulances into the tents.