COPENHAGEN: The World Health Organisation said on Thursday it expected "high levels" of Covid-19 in Europe this summer and called on countries to monitor the spread as cases tripled in the past month.
"As countries across the European region have lifted the social measures that were previously in place, the virus will transmit at high levels over the summer", WHO Europe regional director Hans Kluge told AFP.
"This virus won’t go away just because countries stop looking for it. It’s still spreading, it’s still changing, and it’s still taking lives." With the milder but more contagious Omicron subvariant BA.5 spreading across the continent, the 53 countries in the WHO European region are currently registering just under 500,000 cases daily, according to the organisation’s data. That is up from around 150,000 cases daily at the end of May. Austria, Cyprus, France, Germany, Greece, Luxembourg and Portugal were the countries with the highest incidence rates, with almost all countries in the region seeing a rise in cases.