Europe the only region with rise in Covid-19 last week, WHO says
- Covid-19 rates soar in Britain, lockdowns back in EU’s less-vaccinated east
- Putin orders new Russia restrictions with Covid-19 deaths hitting records
The World Health Organization said there was a 7 per cent rise in new coronavirus cases across Europe last week, the only region in the world where cases increased, and said uneven vaccine uptake posed a threat to the continent.
In its weekly assessment of the pandemic, the UN health agency said there were about 2.7 million new Covid-19 cases and more than 46,000 deaths last week worldwide, similar to the numbers reported the previous week.
WHO said the two regions with the highest rates of Covid-19 incidence were Europe and the Americas. Globally, the US reported the biggest number of new cases, more than 580,000, which still represented a 11 per cent decline.
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Britain, Russia and Turkey accounted for the most cases in Europe.
The biggest drop in Covid-19 cases were seen in Africa and the Western Pacific, where infections fell by about 18 per cent and 16 per cent, respectively. The number of deaths in Africa also declined by about a quarter, despite the dire shortage of vaccines on the continent.
But for the third consecutive week, coronavirus cases have jumped in Europe, with about 1.3 million new cases. More than half of countries in the region reported a rise in their Covid-19 numbers, WHO said. Britain and Russia each reported about a 15 per cent increase in new cases.
In the past week, Russia has repeatedly broken new daily records for Covid-19 cases and the number of infections in the UK has surged to levels not seen since mid-July.
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Russian officials have struggled to vaccinate the population but due to vaccine scepticism, only about 32 per cent of people have been immunised despite the availability of its Sputnik V vaccine. It has by far the largest virus death toll in Europe, with more than 225,000 deaths.
Russia on Thursday reported 1,036 coronavirus-related deaths in the last 24 hours as well as 36,339 new infections, both record daily highs.
Moscow will reintroduce Covid-19 lockdown measures from October 28, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on Thursday, with supermarkets and pharmacies the only shops allowed to stay open in an effort to cut soaring infections and deaths. The partial lockdown in the capital, the first since June of last year, will also run until November 7.
Authorities said they were keeping an eye on a new strain of the Delta variant of the virus which is also spreading in England, but believed existing vaccines could cope with it.
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Britain’s health minister Sajid Javid resisted calls from doctors for a return of restrictions to halt a rising wave of Covid-19 infections, but gave a stark warning they would be brought back if people did not take up vaccination offers.
Britain reported 223 new deaths from Covid-19 on Tuesday, the highest daily figure since March, and cases are the highest in Europe, with nearly 50,000 new infections reported on Wednesday.
Britain has the eighth biggest death toll globally from Covid-19, with 139,000 fatalities.
Javid said new infections could reach 100,000 cases a day and reiterated that the pandemic was not over. The UK was also facing calls for urgent research into a mutation of the Delta variant, that’s known as Delta Plus and is present in Britain.
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The coronavirus was also resurgent in the EU’s less-vaccinated east – bringing with it the return of lockdowns.
Latvia on Wednesday became the bloc’s first member state to once again shut down chunks of its economy as soaring infections – the world’s highest per capita during the past week – threaten to overwhelm hospitals.
For the next month, the Baltic country of 1.9 million people will close bars and shops, impose curfews and resume distance learning for students. Others may not be far behind.
Neighbouring Estonia says it may follow if the situation there gets much worse. Romania, meanwhile – where less than a third of its 19 million population is vaccinated – has turned to the WHO for help after deaths and new cases hit records.
The situation is perhaps most acute in Romania, where officials have of late likened conditions to the scenes in Italy when the virus first arrived last year. What’s more, the Black Sea nation is mired in political crisis that complicates efforts to find and implement solutions.
Associated Press, Reuters, Bloomberg
