Too early to ease virus curbs in Europe, says WHO

COPENHAGEN: The World Health Organisation’s European branch on Thursday said it is too early to ease virus restrictions in Europe despite a drop in new cases in most countries.

Hans Kluge, the WHO’s regional director for Europe, said 30 of the WHO European region’s 53 countries had "seen a significant decrease in 14-day cumulative incidence." "Yet, transmission rates across Europe are still very high, impacting health systems and straining services, making it too early to ease up," Kluge told an online press conference.

The regional director also noted that since only three percent of people in the region had already had a confirmed infection, areas that had been "hit badly once can be hit again." Kluge described the current situation as a "pandemic paradox", noting that while the rollout of vaccines offered "remarkable hope... newly emerging variants of concern are presenting greater uncertainty and risk."

In the WHO’s European Region, which includes Russia and several Central Asian countries, 35 states have started vaccinations, according to the WHO. As for the new variant first discovered in the UK, it has been confirmed in 33 countries and the variant first identified in South Africa has been reported in 16.

According to AFP’s own tally for Europe, which excludes some of the Central Asian countries in the WHO European region, new cases totalled 1,421,692 in the last seven days, down about 10 percent compared with the previous seven.

Days away from the one-year anniversary of the first confirmed cases of Covid-19 in Europe, Kluge said "breaking transmission chains is a clear priority." However he also stressed that the impact on mental health was now so severe that poor mental health had become a "parallel pandemic".

Citing figures from the International Labour Organisation (ILO), Kluge said half of people between 18 and 29, as well 20 percent of healthcare workers, were suffering from "anxiety and depression".

Meanwhile, millions of doses of vaccines could be blocked from entering Britain from the EU within days, as part of Brussels’ response to a major shortage of doses among its member states.

“There is a possibility on certain circumstances not to allow the export to come forward,” an official conceded.Should the UK become reliant on home-produced vaccines, the achievement of herd immunity through the vaccination of 75% of the population could be pushed back by nearly two months, according to analysis by the data analytics firm Airfinity.

The 27 EU member states had been devastated by the announcement last week by the Anglo-Swedish pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca that it would have to cut deliveries of its Covid-19 vaccine to the bloc by 60% in the first quarter of the year, citing production problems.

With national vaccine rollout plans in tatters, and AstraZeneca refusing to divert doses made on sites in Oxford and Staffordshire to the EU, Brussels has been seeking other means of securing its supply.

Officials said they hoped there would be no need for export bans but conceded that a block on the export of vaccines such as those produced by Pfizer/BioNTech in Belgium for the UK was possible.

The British government’s decision to block the export of certain coronavirus medicines was cited by an EU official as a reason for Brussels to protect itself from acts of protectionism around the world. “In an ideal world, we would not be here in an ideal world, the whole story of vaccination would run smoothly without any problems.

But unfortunately we are not in an ideal world, and we have seen over the last weeks that not all works well,” the official said. “And that we have seen that when it comes to the shortage of vaccines, when it comes to the export of vaccines that there are obviously deficiencies, we have to look at, we have to monitor, and we have to tackle.