Coronavirus: US and Europe fail to shake off Covid-19 as variant fuels summer spike

It was supposed to be a post-Covid-19 summer in Europe. Masks are gone in most places, and the holiday season is in full swing as workers rush for the beaches and cities they missed in the two years marked by the pandemic. Instead, the reality confronting people is that the virus never went away.

The super-transmissible BA.5 subvariant of the Omicron strain is fuelling a fresh increase in infections, with cases climbing across the UK and the continent. Intensive-care admissions are rising, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, which has warned that another wave of the disease is starting.

The ending of restrictions on international travel and the return of mass-participation events such as music festivals are also helping the virus to spread. And cases may already be far higher than the figures currently show, given most countries have dramatically scaled back testing.

But governments have long thrown out the initial Covid-19 playbook, and are reluctant to tighten mask rules, limit gatherings or reinstate vaccine and testing requirements for travel. Most are pushing for another round of boosters for at-risk people, counting on Europe’s relatively high vaccination rates to continue to keep the death rate down.

The timing of the uptick suggests that Covid-19 isn’t yet seasonal like the winter flu. Instead, the successive waves of ever more infectious versions show that it’s still not clear what living with the virus will mean in the long run, said Martin McKee, professor of European public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.