This is how the third wave hits Europe

While the UK will soon set 40 million vaccine doses and begin reopening society on Monday, many other European countries are entering the third wave of the Coronavirus pandemic.

In this country, we have received 100,000 cases since February of last year. The Oslo and Viken regions in particular were hit hard by the third wave of infections, and a record number of patients were admitted to hospitals in the area.

– It is dominated by mutated viruses

Norway is not the only country fighting through the third wave. In recent weeks, France, Poland, Germany and Italy in particular have been hit hard, according to Assistant Health Director Espin Rostrup Nackstad.

The third wave of infections in Europe is completely dominated by new mutated virus variants. Nackstad says, especially the British.

He also says the situation is worse in France, with 40-50,000 cases recorded daily. With the exception of the United Kingdom, where nearly half of the population is vaccinated, there is a high prevalence of infection in most countries and many admissions among middle-aged adults and young adults.

He says many countries have shut down the community completely or partially in recent weeks, the most recent being France.

This is how the third wave hits Europe:

Sweden

In Sweden, the third wave of infection is raging in full force. For the eighth week in a row, an increase in infection has been recorded, according to the latest Public Health Authority report. And he wrote that the number of Corona patients in need of intensive care continues to rise Expressen End of this week. On Friday, 375 patients were admitted to the intensive care unit. The highest number since the beginning of January.

But in the previous week, the increase in the number of injured was less severe than in previous weeks, according to the newspaper.

So far, the epidemic has killed 13,621 people in Sweden, and a total of 857,401 cases have been detected.

Poland

In Poland, the situation is dangerous, according to the authorities. On Thursday, it recorded 954 deaths in Corona in one day. This is the highest number in a single day since the outbreak of the pandemic.

– Health Minister Adam Nideszelsky said in a radio interview before the end of the week that this is undoubtedly a war and the situation requires extraordinary measures. Reuters.

According to the health minister, the situation in hospitals is now so precarious that some doctors and nurses are taking a quick nap before they have to start the next shift. There are also reports from hospitals that health workers are using both an oxygen supply and intravenous fluid refilling, to have enough energy to handle a new round.

Protesters burned bandages

– The minister said that the workload is great due to the lack of staff, after seeing with his own eyes the situation in one of the state hospitals.

The country recorded about 30 thousand new cases in one day several days recently, and extended the closure of kindergartens, schools, shopping centers, hotels, cinemas and theaters until April 18.

Germany

In another German Robert Koch Institute weekly report They describe the threat to public health as “extremely high”. RKI reported 17,855 new infections and 104 new deaths on Sunday. to me DPA The numbers on Sundays are often slightly lower due to less testing on weekends. But compared to last Sunday, the numbers are higher.

RKI leader Lothar Wheeler previously described the situation as “extremely dangerous”.

That was the disease

As of April 8, 4,474 coronavirus patients had received intensive care. According to data from 70 hospitals across the country, more and more young people are being admitted and intensive care units are filling up faster.

The largest university hospital in Germany, the Charité in Berlin, fears a crisis after the sharp increase in the number of Corona admissions in the past two weeks.

Martin Chris, a member of the hospital’s board of directors, said at the end of this week, if the number of critically ill COVID-19 patients exceeds what we suffered during the second wave, we would be in a critical situation.

France

Also in France, the third wave of infection is completely devastating. The very high infection rates, more than 30,000 new cases during the past 24 hours, contribute to an increase in the number of hospitalized patients and deaths that continue to rise from day to day.

More than 30,000 patients with corona were hospitalized, on Sunday, and 5,838 of them were transferred to the intensive care unit, according to what he wrote. Parisian.

From Saturday to Sunday, 286 new cases of corona were recorded in just one day.

Since the outbreak of the epidemic, more than 72,626 coronavirus patients have died in French hospitals – 178 of them in the past 24 hours, according to the French newspaper.

Italy

The third wave hard hit Italy, which had long been the epicenter of the virus in Europe last year.

However, Italian health authorities believe that the infection is now receding, and that the climax has been reached.

The curve has reached its peak in Italy, while it is still rising in other countries. “We are seeing a slow downturn in Italy,” says Silvio Prosavero of the Italian Health Institute.

On Friday, nearly 19,000 new cases and more than 700 coronavirus-related deaths were recorded in Italy, according to NTB.

Holland

The Netherlands is also in the third wave of injuries, with the British substitute becoming the dominant one, he writes Watchman.

More than 8,200 new cases of infection were recorded in the country on Sunday, the highest number of days in more than two weeks, according to the NTB.

Far from reopening in Oslo

Several hospitals warned against easing restrictions and said the wave of infections had not yet arrived. Due to the steady increase in infection rates, the Dutch authorities chose Sunday to extend measures such as curfews and other intrusive restrictions until April 28.

The curfew was imposed on January 23 and has been extended several times. This means that the Dutch have to keep staying home from 9 pm until 4:30 am every day. The curfew is not very popular, and there have been several large demonstrations against it.

Validated multiple mutated viruses

Aside from the infection situation in Sweden, Nakstad believes the situation in the Nordic countries is under control.

Finland, Norway and Denmark have all witnessed a decrease in the infection trend since Easter, with less than 1,000 daily cases. Nakstad says the numbers are falling faster in Finland and lowest in Denmark, although measures in both countries are very strict.

A war of words about importing infections

Based on European figures and the case of infection in the Middle East, Africa and Asia, he stresses that it is still important to test everyone who comes to Norway upon entry.

At the same time, there is reason to believe that more new mutated virus variants will emerge and take over as more people are vaccinated in Europe.

This is because the virus variants that vaccines have the worst effect on will likely increase in scope, he says.

Therefore, many exams are still strictly serialized in Norway at NIPH and University Hospitals. For the same reason, vaccine manufacturers are working to modify vaccines so that they work better against, among other things, the South African variant and other virus strains with known mutations that code for changes to the “spike protein” on the virus, including the E484K mutation also found in the Brazilian virus. .