Covid-19. The European fight against the pandemic

Since the start of the pandemic nine months ago, Europe has around five million SARS-CoV-2 infections. After an abrupt arrival of the virus, many of the Member States were able to stabilize the epidemic curve through containment measures: quarantine, wearing a mask and calling for social distance and respiratory etiquette.

However, at a time when confinement was lifted and the return to school and work returned to normal, new daily cases have again hit record highs in several countries and the European health authorities are becoming concerned.

“In some Member States, the current situation is even worse than during the peak of March,” the European Commissioner for Health, Stella Kyriakides lamented this Thursday. “It is abundantly evident that this crisis has not been overcome. We are at a decisive moment ”.

The latest bulletin from the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC) reveals a “worrying increase” in Covid-19 cases in Europe since August, mainly attributed to the “expected and necessary lifting of restrictions during the beginning of the summer”.

In Portugal, three more deaths were reported this Thursday due to Covid-19 and 691 new cases of infection, according to the epidemiological bulletin of the Directorate-General for Health (DGS). Since the beginning of the pandemic, the country has recorded 1,931 deaths and 71,156 cases of infection.

The number of hospitalizations continued to rise in the last 24 hours, with an additional 17, out of a total of 588 patients hospitalized with Covid-19. In the intensive care units, 85 infected people are now hospitalized.
Spain is the European country with the highest accumulated number of infections

However, Portugal is not the most worrying case at the moment when looking at the European picture. Spain this Thursday surpassed the 700 thousand infected, with 10,653 new cases in the last 24 hours, 40 percent of which are concentrated in the Madrid region.

In fact, Madrid continues to be the autonomous community with the highest number of infections. Of the 1,310 people admitted to Spanish hospitals on the last day, 486 did so in Madrid, 145 in Andalusia, 110 in Castile and Leon and 104 in Catalonia.

Spanish Health Minister Salvador Illa warned this Thursday that “difficult weeks are coming” in the Community of Madrid and urged to act “with determination” to take control of the pandemic.

Since Monday, almost a million people in the Spanish capital and its surroundings have been subject to strict restrictions on their movements for two weeks.

The more than 850 thousand people affected (out of a total of 6.6 million inhabitants in the region) are prohibited from leaving their area of ​​residence, except for very specific reasons: to go to work or study, to visit a doctor, to respond to a legal summons or to care for dependent people.
United Kingdom and France with new daily records

The United Kingdom has also raised concerns among public health experts. In the last 24 hours, the country registered 6,634 new infections, a new daily record, and 40 deaths due to Covid-19.

The total accumulated since the beginning of the pandemic in the United Kingdom thus increased to 416,363 cases of contagion and 41,902 deaths.

One of the most serious cases on the last day in Europe is, nevertheless, that of France. There were more than 16 thousand new cases from yesterday to today, which means the record of people infected in a single day since the beginning of the pandemic in that country.

The total number of cases confirmed by testing in France thus rises to 497,237. In the last 24 hours, there were 52 deaths due to the new coronavirus, bringing the total number to 31,511.

Hospitals in the Paris region announced on Thursday that they will begin to postpone non-urgent operations again due to the increase in the number of cases in the capital. On the other hand, the Marseille region will try to curb the governmental imposition of the closure of restaurants in the next 15 days announced on Wednesday by the Minister of Health.
Italy keeps escalating daily deaths

Still on the European continent, Italy continues to climb the number of daily deaths, with 23 more in the last 24 hours, for a total of 35,781. This rise confirms a trend in the daily increase in deaths in the country that was once the focus of the pandemic in Europe.

1786 more cases were registered than on the previous day, bringing the total value to 304,323 since the beginning of the pandemic. The number of active cases is currently 46,780, with 2,731 people hospitalized, 73 more than on Wednesday.

The most affected regions in the last 24 hours were Veneto, with 248 new infections, and Lazio, with 230 new cases.

w / agencies

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