Rajeev Choudhury

COVID19 is in an upswing across countries in Europe over the past seven days, data from various sources indicate.

Data from 49 countries of Europe accessed from European Commission as well as our world in data show that seven of the 49 countries of Europe accounted for 63% of new infections and 55% of the death reported in the period from November 22-28, 2021.

Germany with more than 400,000 new infections and Russia with 8,420 deaths topped the list.

The United Kingdom with 305,164 new cases in the past seven days also seems to be going through another phase of intense COVID19 infections.

The other counties which reported more than 100,000 new infections in the past seven days were Poland, the Netherlands, France and the Czech Republic.

On November 29, 202, Russia reported 33860 new cases of COVID19 and 1,209 deaths.

Meanwhile, a new study by the World Health Organisation in a study Regional Office for Europe and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) published in Eurosurveillance estimated that 4,70,000 lives have been saved among those aged 60 years and above since the start of COVID19 vaccination rollout in 33 countries across the WHO European Region.

The Netherlands government has banned flights from countries in southern Africa. People returning from that region have been asked to get tested for COVID19, a statement released by the government clarified.

Initial results indicate that a number of the people who were tested in the Netherlands have the Omicron variant, it elaborated.

The Netherlands National Institute of Public Health had earlier reported citing a new study that people with vaccination were 94% less likely to be hospitalised and 97% less likely to require ICU admission due to COVID19.

“In the past eight weeks, the chance that a fully vaccinated person with the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 will be admitted to hospital was 12.5 times lower than for a non-vaccinated person. The chance of ICU admission for a fully vaccinated person was 25 times lower. These results show that there are no major changes in vaccine effectiveness compared to previous analyses in early November 2021,” the Institute said.

Many European countries including the UK, Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany, the Czech Republic, Italy, Portugal, and Belgium have announced that they had detected cases of the new ‘Omicorn’ coronavirus variant.