The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is back again in Europe and this may very well be the fourth wave.

COVID infections are once again mounting in Europe particularly in Russia, the UK, Belgium, Germany, Austria, and Holland.

The blame for the reappearance of the virus again gripping countries is placed on those who choose to remain unvaccinated.

Around 65 per cent of the population of Europe is fully vaccinated. According to the New York Times, Europe accounted for 60 per cent of new cases across the world last week and half of COVID-related deaths.
 
That comes down to 2.2 million cases and 25,000 deaths. Ominously, this affects all age groups.

“I am seeing the storm clouds gathering over parts of the European continent. We have been here before and we remember what happens when a wave starts rolling in,” said the UK’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

The World Health Organization (WHO) recently noted that deaths related to COVID-19 in Europe are rising to a rate of five per cent a week.

With winter coming and the Christmas season around the corner, many parts of Europe may well have to again retreat into lockdown.

On Friday (November 19), Austria announced that it will be the first country in western Europe to go back into full lockdown with vaccines becoming compulsory.

Austria’s Chancellor Alexander Schellenberg said: “In the long term, the way out of this vicious circle we are in – and it is a vicious cycle, we are stumbling from wave to lockdown and that can’t carry on ad infinitum – is only vaccination.”

In Belgium, hospitalisations have risen to pre-lockdown levels.

COVID has again taken hold of Germany and the question is, will the country go back into full lockdown again?

Answering this question, Germany’s Health Minister Jens Spahn said: “We are now in a situation where we can’t rule anything out. We are now in a national emergency.”

Last week, daily infections in Germany reached as high as 65,000.

Germany’s Director of Disease Control Agency Lothar Wieler said: “We are currently heading toward a serious emergency. We are going to have a really terrible Christmas if we don’t take countermeasures now.”

Getting people vaccinated and then taking the booster shot is now imperative. As it now stands, 67 per cent of Americans are vaccinated, 76 per cent of the population of France has had their jabs, 68 per cent of the UK and 90 per cent of Ireland. In Italy, 84 per cent of its people have taken protective vaccines.

One sees the stark contrast between the developed and the developing world where it has proven difficult to get the majority of populations in the less wealthy and educated countries to get fully vaccinated. In many of those parts of the world, scepticism and religious reticence have made that mission almost impossible.

“We are at another critical point of pandemic resurgence with Europe back at the epicentre of the pandemic—where we were one year ago. If we stay on this trajectory, we could see another half a million COVID-19 deaths in Europe and Central Asia by the first of February next year,” said the WHO’s Director, Hans Kluge.