The Netherlands sees a record number of infections this week. 1700 new infections were diagnosed, but the number of hospital admissions and deaths remains relatively low for the time being. This is different in Southern Europe, where the virus is rapidly spreading in two of the most affected countries: France and Spain.
In Spain alone, 162 people died today from the effects of Covid-19. There are more than 11,000 new infections. In France, 46 people died and nearly 10,000 people were diagnosed with infection.
Authorities in the countries are concerned. And the WHO also warned today. “The situation is very serious”, says European director Hans Kluge about the European figures. He points out that the strict measures from earlier led to a sharp drop in the numbers, but emphasizes that the number of newly diagnosed infections is now higher than in March – when the pandemic was at its peak.
Coronaziekenhuis in Madrid
In Spain they also see the number of hospital admissions increasing. Five months ago they built an emergency hospital in Madrid to care for all patients. They now want to be ahead of such a scenario. That’s why they started building a special corona hospital months ago.
The infectious disease hospital, with a thousand beds, should be finished in 7 weeks. It is a race against time: on June 25 there were 71,000 infections in Madrid. There are now 100,000 more.
Correspondent Rop Zoutberg took a look at the construction site, where the construction workers are building hard “to protect their families”:
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Spanish construction workers are building a corona hospital ‘faster than ever’
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In the Netherlands, the number of hospital admissions is not too bad, although the number of IC admissions is slowly increasing. “It is not going that fast, but it will go faster if you do not intervene now”, says epidemiologist Patricia Bruijning against Nieuwusuur.
Anyone who looks at other countries, such as Spain and France, sees the same trends everywhere, says Bruijning. “It starts among people in their twenties and increases to enormous numbers. Then not very much happens in hospitals,” says Bruijning. “Then a wave comes after a month or two later.”
In France, doctors are concerned about the behavior of young people. Because they did not take so closely with the rules of conduct in July and August, the infections are now rising again. “Playtime is over now,” warns a doctor.
French youngsters sit shoulder to shoulder on the terraces in Paris, “because we are young and stupid”:
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French students close together on the terrace: ‘because we are young and stupid’
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Epidemiologist Patricia Bruijning expects that what is now happening in other countries is the foreland of the Netherlands. “In the US we have already seen this happen a month or two ago. There it also started in their twenties and it was not too bad, but after that hospital admissions increased. keep control. “
In the Netherlands, various regional measures will be presented tomorrow. That is good news, says Bruijning. “We have to keep the pain as small as possible and only intervene where it is necessary. Now we are looking at the regions in the west, but that is not a license for students elsewhere in the country that they can just party there.”
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