The current rate of transmission of the coronavirus in Europe is "very worrying" and could cause half a million additional deaths between now and February on the continent, the World Health Organization (O.M.S) warned this Thursday.
According to the weekly report issued by the organization, during the week of October 25 to 31, 2021 there was a slight upward trend in new weekly cases, with just over three million new cases reported, which is equivalent to an increase of six percent compared to the previous week. Meanwhile, other regions reported stable declines or trends.
“We are, once again, at the epicenter,” lamented O.M.S Europe director Hans Kluge at an online press conference. “The current rate of transmission in the 53 countries that make up the European region is very worrying (...). If we maintain this trajectory, we could have another half a million deaths from covid-19 in the region between now and February, "he added.
For the O.M.S, the increase in cases is explained by the combination of insufficient vaccination with a relaxation of anticovid measures.
According to data from O.M.S Europe, hospitalizations linked to the coronavirus "have doubled in a week."
Despite the fact that Latin America and the Caribbean continues to be the region with the most deaths from covid -a cut off this Thursday it adds more than 1,520,000 deaths, just over 109,000 compared to Europe-, the WHO estimates that if it is taken into account the overmortality linked to covid-19, directly and indirectly, the real balance of the pandemic could be two to three times higher than the official one.
The number of new cases per day has been on the rise for almost six consecutive weeks in Europe and the number of daily deaths has risen for seven weeks.
The figures are on average 250,000 new cases and 3,600 deaths per day, according to official data.
"Most of the people hospitalized and dying from COVID-19 today are not fully vaccinated," Kluge stressed.
On average, only 47 percent of people in the region, which includes European and other Central Asian countries, are fully vaccinated.
