Europe thought it was done with #COVID19.
The UK's daily case rate is still < 1/3 of what it was during the #Omicron peak, but cases are rising as fast as they were falling just 2 weeks earlier. Daily cases are also rising in > 1/2 of European Union.
It has been two years since the Covid-19 pandemic became a reality for millions of people in Europe and many of the region's leaders now believe it is time to move on. But as countries shed restrictions, cases and hospitalizations are slowly inching up and public health experts are worried about the consequences.
Covid-19 cases are rising in Britain just two weeks after UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson lifted most mitigation measures. Infections were 48% higher last week compared with the one before and hospitalizations were up 17% over the same period, CNN's Brenda Goodman and Deidre McPhillips report.
The country's daily case rate -- about 55,000 a day -- is still less than a third of what it was during the Omicron peak, but cases are rising as fast as they were falling just two weeks earlier, when self-isolation rules for infected people ended in the UK.
Daily cases are also rising in more than half of the countries in the European Union. They have jumped 48% in the Netherlands. On Tuesday, Germany reported a record high seven-day incidence in Covid-19 cases, of 1,585.4 Covid-19 infections per 100,000 people, days before the government is due to consider easing some restrictions.
The situation has caught the eye of American public health experts, who worry that Europe's rise in infections may be a preview of what's to come in the US. Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told CNN that his British counterparts have pegged the rise in cases to a combination of three factors: The more transmissible BA.2 variant; the opening of society and people mingling more indoors without masks; and waning immunity from vaccination or prior infection.
"Without a doubt, opening up society and having people mingle indoors is clearly something that is a contributor, as well as overall waning immunity, which means we've really got to stay heads-up and keep our eye on the pattern here," Fauci said. "So that's the reason why we're watching this very carefully."
Although the UK may provide a glimpse of the future, there are key differences that will affect how BA.2 plays out in the US, Keri Althoff, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told CNN.
In the UK, 86% of eligible people are fully vaccinated, and 67% are boosted, compared with 69% of those eligible vaccinated and 50% boosted in the US. "What we see happening in the UK is going to be perhaps a better story than what we should be expecting here," Althoff said.
Even though the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) did away with masking recommendations for most parts of the country two weeks ago, it is vital to stay vigilant. "We have to stay diligent in terms of monitoring of it and testing and be prepared to possibly reverse a lot of the relaxing of these restrictions," said Deborah Fuller, a microbiologist at the University of Washington.
"We can't let our guard down, because the message that people get when they say 'we're lifting restrictions' is the pandemic is over. And it's not."
Read more at:
https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/16/world/coronavirus-newsletter-intl-16-03-22/index.html
