Kluge noted that the fall/winter surge continued to unfold in Europe with exponential increases in daily cases and matching percentage increases in daily deaths.

“The evolving epidemiological situation in Europe raises great concern: daily numbers of cases are up, hospital admissions are up, COVID-19 is now the fifth leading cause of death and the bar of 1000 deaths per day has now been reached,” Kluge underlined.

Kluge stated that the Region had registered the highest weekly incidence of COVID-19 cases since the beginning of the pandemic, with almost 700 000 cases reported.

“Confirmed cases have now surpassed 7 million – moving from 6 to 7 million cases in just 10 days. Over the weekend, new records were reached with daily totals surpassing 120 000 cases for the first time, on both 9 and 10 October.”

“Does it mean that we are back to mid-March? No, we are not. Although we record 2 to 3 times more cases per day compared to the April peak, we still observe 5 times fewer deaths. The doubling time in hospital admissions is still 2 to 3 times longer. In the meantime, the virus has not changed; it has not become more nor less dangerous,” Kluge added.

Kluge attributed higher rates in daily contaminations to the number of tests performed, with even higher testing rates among the younger ages and added: “And there are reasons for lower mortality, which include the higher share of transmission among less vulnerable young people, itself a factor of mobility and unprotected contact among the younger age cohorts, who have better capacity to manage severe cases and avoid a fatal course in the illness.”

Underscoring that projections from reliable epidemiological models were not optimistic, Kluge went on to say: “These models indicate that prolonged relaxing policies could propel – by January 2021 – daily mortality at levels 4 to 5 times higher than what we recorded in April. But the same models show that simple measures – such as, for example, the systematic and generalized wearing of masks (at a rate of 95% from now, instead of the less than 60% we see today) together with the strict control of social gathering, whether in public or private spaces – may save up to 281 000 lives by 1 February across our 53 Member States in the Region.”

“Under proportionately more stringent scenarios, the model is reliably much more optimistic, still with slightly higher levels of morbidity and mortality than in the first wave, but with a lower slope – as if we should rather expect a higher and longer swell instead of a sharp peak, giving us more reaction time,” Kluge said and added: “These projections do nothing but confirm what we always said: the pandemic won’t reverse its course on its own, but we will.” (ILKHA)