Like Italy, all the countries of the continent are grappling with a wave of cases led by the highly transmissible variants of Omicron Ba.4 and Ba.5. Based on current projections, the EMA expects both to “become dominant in Europe probably completely replacing all other variants by the end of July”.
The western part is all in dark red in the new map of the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (Ecdc). In the maps, EU states are assigned colors using an indicator based on the incidence of new cases at 14 days and the adoption of the vaccine in the region. Only Wallonia (Belgium), parts of Ireland, Slovenia and Croatia are in a lighter red.
In France, a leap of reinfections
With over 160,000 notifications per day, France is in a phase of conspicuous growth in infections. According to figures from Santé Publique France, with the 74 people who have died in the last twenty-four hours, the total deaths since the beginning of the pandemic is 150,017. The number of reinfections has risen sharply, over 12 per cent. And according to public experts, the rise has been continuous since the arrival of the Omicron wave. A new (with positive test) contracted at least 60 days after the first is considered reinfection. Between March 2, 2021 and June 12, 2022, they accounted for only 4.1% of all confirmed cases.
Great Britain, 1 in 25 infected
Even in the United Kingdom, the rebound of infections estimated by Covid-19 is not interrupted, according to the models updated every seven days by the Office for National Statistics (Ons), after months of constant decline even in the absence of any restrictions (mask obligation included). The trend, which has been underway again for a month, is related by experts to the appearance of the latest sub-variants of the Omicron strain, Ba.4 and Ba.5, already widespread in the USA and now prevalent on the island. as elsewhere in Europe.
According to the projections conducted on a sample by the ONS, infected people – between symptomatic and asymptomatic – rose to 2.7 million in the country, almost 400 thousand more than in the previous week, albeit down as a percentage of weekly increase from 30 at 18%. In total, it is estimated that one in every 25 people in England is now infected (compared to one in every 30 in the previous seven days); one in every 20 in Wales (versus one in every 30); one in every 19 in Northern Ireland (versus one in every 25); and one in every 17 (against one in 18) in Scotland, the nation of the Kingdom that confirms the worst figures. However, the death curve (contained according to specialists thanks to the high percentage of cured and vaccinated) remains much less pronounced than in the previous waves of the pandemic; while hospitalizations for Covid are returning to rise with a sum of about 11 thousand patients indicated at the moment in all hospitals in the country and over 200 in the various intensive care departments, albeit far from the total record of 34,000 in January 2021.