Coronavirus: just in time for summer holidays, Europe sees sharp drop in cases
- Europe saw the largest decline in new Covid-19 infections and deaths this week compared with any other region
- Now, vaccination rates are accelerating across the continent, and with them, the promise of summer holidays
Now, vaccination rates are accelerating across Europe, and with them, the promise of summer holidays on Ibiza, Crete or Corsica. There are hopes for a rebirth of a tourism industry that in Spain and Italy alone accounts for 13 per cent of gross domestic product but was wiped out by the pandemic.
“We don’t speak of 2020. We speak of from today onwards,” said Guglielmo Miani, president of Milan’s Montenapoleone luxury shopping district, where European and American tourists have started trickling back, wooed in part by in-person meet-ups with design teams and free breakfasts at iconic cafes. The hope is that Asian tourists will follow next year.
Europe saw the largest decline in new Covid-19 infections and deaths this week compared with any other region, while also reporting about 44 per cent of adults had received at least one dose of vaccine, according to the World Health Organization and European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.