Why is Europe the Covid epicentre once again?

UN health agency fears another 500,000 people could die by February

Europe and central Asia have become the new “epicentre” for the coronavirus pandemic and face another 500,000 deaths by February, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said earlier this month.

Since then Austria and the Netherlands have imposed new lockdowns and, in Germany, Angela Merkel has pleaded with unvaccinated people to get the jab.

In Britain, Boris Johnson has warned of a “blizzard from the east” that could put the country’s lockdown-free status at risk. However, the UK notched the region’s second-highest tally of new Covid-19 infections in the WHO’s latest weekly disease round-up, behind only Russia.

So, what has gone wrong?

Low vaccination take-up in many countries

Despite the power of vaccines to save lives, distribution remains low in some parts of the region - particularly, the WHO says, in the Baltics, Balkans and central and eastern Europe.

This is partly down to problems of logistics, but also to a lack of trust and complacency among the populace, according to experts.

While nations around the world have struggled with resistance to vaccines, many in central and eastern Europe have notably low rates even for places where supply is not an issue. Bulgaria and Romania, both in the European Union, have fully vaccinated about 23 per cent and 35 per cent of their populations, respectively. Bosnia and Herzegovina has just 21 per cent fully vaccinated.

Referring to Romania's slow response, physician and health statistician Octavian Jurma described his country as a “textbook example” of the “tragic consequences produced by a political takeover of the pandemic response”.

In Germany, anti-vaccine beliefs appear to overlap with support of right-wing or populist politics. Ms Merkel told Germans in her weekly video podcast she was worried about what winter would bring, adding that “difficult weeks lie ahead”.

Germany’s caseload has rocketed in recent weeks, hitting record levels at the weekend. However, its 277.4 cases per 100,000 head of population was well below the UK’s figure of 354.6. Bringing us to...

The relaxation of lockdown restrictions

Britain is not the only country in the WHO’s European region to have eased back on or been reluctant to impose public disease control measures in recent weeks.

When it warned Europe had reemerged as a viral epicentre, the WHO bemoaned the fact that seven countries had relaxed their stances, even though 23 others had “responsibly strengthened” theirs.

“Testing, contact tracing, ventilation in indoor spaces and physical distancing remain part of our arsenal of defences,” the UN agency said this month.

Romanian leaders finally introduced a curfew this month requiring people who do not have a Covid pass – displaying proof of vaccination, recovery from the virus or a negative test result – to stay home between 10pm and 5am. Infections have since dropped slightly, but hospitals remain overwhelmed.

And Hungary's government ordered mask-wearing on public transportation earlier this month and allowed private employers to mandate vaccines for workers.

But Gyula Kincses, chair of the Hungarian Chamber of Doctors, said it was “too little, too late” and that masks should be mandatory indoors.

In a recent interview Viktor Orban, Hungary’s populist PM whose party faces election next spring, said mandatory inoculations would “be beyond the limits of what Hungarians will accept”, even while acknowledging his new restrictions could only slow, not stop, the virus.

Both Hungary and Serbia have said they prefer to rely on vaccination to protect their citizens; however, the latter country’s hospitals are so swamped some are treating only Covid-19 patients.

In Russia, most of the country’s 80-plus regions lifted a week-long workplace shutdown at the beginning of last week that was designed to curb a surge in case numbers, despite new cases remaining near their record highs.

What is being done?

In the UK, Mr Johnson insists there is no need to trigger his full “plan B” for tackling coronavirus this winter, despite high infection numbers. He has no intention of cancelling another Christmas. However, he has admitted Britons cannot be complacent about the situation and urged the over-40s to get a booster jab.

Wales has advised people to work from home and introduced Covid passes for venues like cinemas, because of high levels of the virus.

Elsewhere, however, governments are cracking down further.

Austria has placed some 2 million unvaccinated people in lockdown, with chancellor Alexander Schallenberg saying: “We have told one-third of the population, ‘You will not leave your apartment any more apart from for certain reasons’. That is a massive reduction in contacts between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated.”

The Netherlands has imposed a three-week partial lockdown that will see non-essential shops close at 6pm, the reintroduction of a 1.5m social distancing rule and a limit of four people aged 13 or over visiting a home together.

And the German federal government is to meet leaders of its 16 states this week to discuss tightening measures, though the three parties negotiating to form a new government following September’s elections have declined to renew a state of emergency that expires on 25 November.

The WHO has urged governments to “stay cautious, act early on any change and stay ahead of the virus”. It also said that if 95 per cent of people in the region wore face masks religiously, some 188,000 of the 500,000 deaths it fears by February next year could be prevented.

Additional reporting by Associated Press