French police walk on the streets during the French Midsummer Festival of Music on June 21, 2021 in Paris, France.
Rafael Yaghobzadeh | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images
LONDON – The coronavirus delta variant, first discovered in India, has now spread around the world, causing further waves of infection in countries like the UK
Now there are increasing signs that there is also a sharp increase in cases on the European mainland.
The EU is certainly concerned about the spread of the highly infectious Delta variant, which has been shown to be 60% more transmissible than the alpha variant first found in England, causing more hospital stays and slightly reducing the effectiveness of vaccines.
A number of European countries have further restrictions on visitors from the UK, but experts believe it is only a matter of time before it launches in mainland Europe – and the signals are already strong.
On Tuesday, French Health Minister Olivier Veran said the Delta variant now accounts for around 20% of Covid-19 cases in France, up from last week’s estimate which accounts for 9-10% of cases.
The German health department, the Robert Koch Institute, said this week that the Delta variant accounted for around 36% of the cases in the week from June 15 to 20, 15% more than in the previous week. Lothar Wieler, President of the RKI, also told officials that the variant now represents more than 50% of the registered cases in Germany, Deutsche Welle reported on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, Italy’s national health institute said Friday that cases attributed to the Delta and Kappa variants of Covid (an “interesting variant” linked to the Delta variant, according to the World Health Organization) in Italy rose almost 17 last month % of all Covid cases.
Spain and Portugal have also reported increases in delta variant cases, as have Poland, Russia, Switzerland and Turkey. In addition, the Delta Plus variant – a mutation of the Delta mutation – has also been detected in parts of Europe.
Read more: Delta Covid variant has a new mutation called “Delta plus”: You need to know that
Too little too late?
Germany and France are among the countries that have placed quarantine restrictions on British travelers and Berlin has gone a step further, calling on the EU to take a unified approach when it comes to sheltering British travelers coming to the block Quarantine.
The move could probably be a case of too little and too late action, experts note.
“I doubt that European countries, with their open economies and more restricted border controls, quarantine measures, and tracking and tracing, can push back deltas for long … especially given that there is already extensive local distribution,” said Tom Wenseleers, an evolutionary biologist and biostatistician the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium, told CNBC on Tuesday.
He pointed out that the actual number of infections in Europe from the delta variant could be significantly higher than current estimates suggest.
“I estimate that in Portugal 90% of diagnosed cases are now Delta, but with a strong geographic focus on Lisbon. However, many other countries in Europe such as Spain, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, Sweden and the Netherlands are not far behind.” , with over 50% of all diagnosed cases now classified as delta there too, “he noted.
The Delta variant now accounts for 95% of all new cases sequenced in the UK, and where the UK goes, the US and Europe are likely to follow suit, experts believe. The European Center for Disease Prevention and Control announced last week that the Delta variant will account for 90% of all Covid viruses circulating in the EU by the end of August.
Vaccination to the rescue?
Covid vaccination programs could help if countries in Europe can use vaccinations quickly enough. A study by Public Health England in May showed that both doses of the Covid vaccines (the most widely available vaccines in Europe) developed by AstraZeneca-Oxford University and Pfizer-BioNTech provide effective protection against the Delta variant. However, both vaccines were significantly less effective after just one shot.
Therefore, the race is now on in Europe to fully vaccinate millions of people, and especially the young people who were the last to receive a Covid vaccination. Data from England shows again that the young, unvaccinated, over 50 years old and people who received only one dose of a Covid vaccine are most at risk of infection from the Delta variant.
Wenseleers from KU Leuven agreed that “vaccinating at full speed and encouraging people in certain risk groups to continue to exercise caution are now likely to be the most important options for the EU”, “although more intensive border controls and tracking and tracing will help could buy some time until “the vaccination campaign is more advanced, which will help prevent a resurgence,” he added.
The wider economy
Anger is already brewing in the EU over the prospects for the summer tourism season and whether Brits and others should travel to the region, especially when tourism is an important economic factor for a number of EU countries such as Greece and Portugal.
How a potential new wave of Delta variant infections will affect the entire region’s economy and reopening remains to be seen as well, but economists are keeping a close eye on them.
“The delta wave is rolling in,” said Holger Schmieding, chief economist at Berenberg Bank, in a statement on Wednesday. “After Great Britain with a delay of about seven weeks, the registered SARS-CoV-2 infections in the euro zone are apparently beginning to increase amid large regional differences.”
In assessing whether the “new wave” will jeopardize Berenberg’s overconsensual growth forecasts for the euro zone and the UK (this year GDP growth of 4.7% in the euro zone and 7% in the UK), Schmieding believes that forecasts would not significantly affected.
“Thanks to the rapid progress in vaccination, we believe it is unlikely that the medical systems in the UK or on the continent will again be stressed to such an extent that economic activity will have to be severely curtailed again in order to keep medical risks under control … must monitor the risks closely . “
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