Europe’s coronavirus second wave is in full swing with 20 countries on the continent, including the UK, Italy and Switzerland, reporting record numbers of COVID-19 infections.
Key points:
At least 20 European countries have recorded their highest daily number of new COVID-19 infections
Europe has recorded more than 5 million cases and 200,000 deaths linked to coronavirus
Authorities are worried that hospitals will not be able to cope with the second wave
The UK topped the list with 26,668 new cases and 191 coronavirus-related deaths in the previous 24 hours, while Italy recorded an additional 15,199 infections, up from its previous record of 11,705 on Sunday.
The Czech Republic saw an increase of 11,984 cases on Wednesday, while Poland recorded 10,040 and Switzerland had 5,596 new infections.
The records are following a worrying trend in Europe which is forcing governments to reintroduce restrictions on social interaction and hospitality services throughout the continent.
According to data from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), Europe has registered more than 5 million cases and 200,000 deaths, with new cases beginning to rise sharply from the end of September.
Meanwhile, Spain has become the first western European country to reach more than 1 million confirmed cases after reporting 16,973 additional cases in the past 24 hours.
The country has 34,366 confirmed deaths.
European Union leaders will hold a video-conference next week to discuss how to better cooperate as the infections rise.
Hospitals struggle to cope
Health authorities across Europe are worried about hospital bed and ICU capacity as COVID-19 cases soar.(Reuters: Eric Gaillard)
With case numbers that were brought largely under control by lockdowns in March and April now surging, authorities in countries from Poland to Portugal have expressed mounting alarm at the renewed crisis confronting their health infrastructure.
Belgium, struggling with what its health minister called a “tsunami” of infections, is postponing all non-essential hospital procedures, and similar measures are looming in other countries where case numbers have been rising relentlessly.
“If the rhythm of the past week continues, rescheduling and suspending some non-priority activities will become unavoidable,” Julio Pascual, medical director at Barcelona’s Hospital del Mar, told Reuters.
European countries boast some of the world’s best health services and doctors say that with the benefit of almost a year’s experience with coronavirus, they are much better equipped to treat individual patients clinically.
But the capacity of hospitals to handle a wave of COVID-19 patients, as well as people suffering from cancer, heart disease and other serious conditions, is still vulnerable.
Dutch health authorities said if the number of COVID patients in hospital wards continues to grow, three quarters of regular care may have to be scrapped by the end of November, and there were similar warnings from Czech authorities.
“We have hit a wall on clinical beds,” Wouter van der Horst, spokesman for the Dutch hospital association NVZ, said.
‘We couldn’t get to everyone’
As hospital admissions have spiralled, much attention has been focused on intensive care units, which came close to being overwhelmed in many areas during the first wave of the crisis.
On Wednesday authorities in Lombardy, the Italian region at the centre of the first wave of the pandemic, ordered the reopening of special temporary intensive care units set up in Milan and Bergamo that were shut down as case numbers receded.
Already, a number of regional health authorities in Germany, one of the countries that dealt with the first wave most effectively, have agreed to take in intensive care patients from other countries.
The ECDC said that some 19 per cent of patients diagnosed with COVID-19 are estimated to have ended up in hospital and eight per cent of those could require intensive care, but variations are wide both across Europe and within individual countries.
On Wednesday, Poland’s Health Minister said up to 30 per cent of new cases there could end up being hospitalised.
There has also been concern over the track and trace systems meant to keep local outbreaks of the disease under control but those systems have proven ineffective in many areas.
Authorities in Ireland, where the five-day case average has tripled since the start of October, said there were no longer enough officials to keep the system working.
Niamh O’Beirne, national lead for testing and tracing, told RTE radio that contact tracing centres had seen “unprecedented demand” with exponential growth in the number of cases, “and over the week we simply couldn’t get to everyone”.
HALIFAX – The Nova Scotia government says it could be months before it reveals how many people are on the wait-list for a family doctor.
The head of the province’s health authority told reporters Wednesday that the government won’t release updated data until the 160,000 people who were on the wait-list in June are contacted to verify whether they still need primary care.
Karen Oldfield said Nova Scotia Health is working on validating the primary care wait-list data before posting new numbers, and that work may take a matter of months. The most recent public wait-list figures are from June 1, when 160,234 people, or about 16 per cent of the population, were on it.
“It’s going to take time to make 160,000 calls,” Oldfield said. “We are not talking weeks, we are talking months.”
The interim CEO and president of Nova Scotia Health said people on the list are being asked where they live, whether they still need a family doctor, and to give an update on their health.
A spokesperson with the province’s Health Department says the government and its health authority are “working hard” to turn the wait-list registry into a useful tool, adding that the data will be shared once it is validated.
Nova Scotia’s NDP are calling on Premier Tim Houston to immediately release statistics on how many people are looking for a family doctor. On Tuesday, the NDP introduced a bill that would require the health minister to make the number public every month.
“It is unacceptable for the list to be more than three months out of date,” NDP Leader Claudia Chender said Tuesday.
Chender said releasing this data regularly is vital so Nova Scotians can track the government’s progress on its main 2021 campaign promise: fixing health care.
The number of people in need of a family doctor has more than doubled between the 2021 summer election campaign and June 2024. Since September 2021 about 300 doctors have been added to the provincial health system, the Health Department said.
“We’ll know if Tim Houston is keeping his 2021 election promise to fix health care when Nova Scotians are attached to primary care,” Chender said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
ST. JOHN’S, N.L. – Newfoundland and Labrador‘s chief medical officer is monitoring the rise of whooping cough infections across the province as cases of the highly contagious disease continue to grow across Canada.
Dr. Janice Fitzgerald says that so far this year, the province has recorded 230 confirmed cases of the vaccine-preventable respiratory tract infection, also known as pertussis.
Late last month, Quebec reported more than 11,000 cases during the same time period, while Ontario counted 470 cases, well above the five-year average of 98. In Quebec, the majority of patients are between the ages of 10 and 14.
Meanwhile, New Brunswick has declared a whooping cough outbreak across the province. A total of 141 cases were reported by last month, exceeding the five-year average of 34.
The disease can lead to severe complications among vulnerable populations including infants, who are at the highest risk of suffering from complications like pneumonia and seizures. Symptoms may start with a runny nose, mild fever and cough, then progress to severe coughing accompanied by a distinctive “whooping” sound during inhalation.
“The public, especially pregnant people and those in close contact with infants, are encouraged to be aware of symptoms related to pertussis and to ensure vaccinations are up to date,” Newfoundland and Labrador’s Health Department said in a statement.
Whooping cough can be treated with antibiotics, but vaccination is the most effective way to control the spread of the disease. As a result, the province has expanded immunization efforts this school year. While booster doses are already offered in Grade 9, the vaccine is now being offered to Grade 8 students as well.
Public health officials say whooping cough is a cyclical disease that increases every two to five or six years.
Meanwhile, New Brunswick’s acting chief medical officer of health expects the current case count to get worse before tapering off.
A rise in whooping cough cases has also been reported in the United States and elsewhere. The Pan American Health Organization issued an alert in July encouraging countries to ramp up their surveillance and vaccination coverage.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 10, 2024.
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