The World Health Organization has again called for more widespread vaccination of populations. Almost all European countries have shown an increase in the number of cases in recent weeks, driven by the Omicron BA.5 subvariant,
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The rise in the epidemic is not specific to France. The World Health Organization (WHO) told AFP it expected “high levels” of Covid-19 contaminations this summer in Europe, Thursday June 30.
“The virus is not going to go away just because countries stop monitoring it. It continues to infect, it continues to change and it still kills”, underlined the director for Europe of the UN organization, Hans Kluge. He called for watching the virus closely after a tripling of daily cases for a month, and claimed that “As countries across Europe have lifted the social measures that were in place, the virus will circulate at high levels over the summer”.
Almost all European countries have shown an increase in the number of cases in recent weeks, driven by the Omicron BA.5 subvariant, which is more contagious and whose symptoms last longer. The WHO Europe area has seen nearly 500,000 daily cases this week, and the daily death toll meanwhile remains at a low level of around 500, having topped 4,000 during the winter. Portugal, Luxembourg, France, Greece, Cyprus, Germany and Austria are particularly affected.
WHO hopes that current experience and vaccination levels will allow“avoid the most severe consequences we saw earlier in the pandemic”. But his previous recommendations “remain in place” : isolation in the event of respiratory symptoms, wearing a mask in crowded places and the widest possible vaccination. The Minister of Health, Brigitte Bourguignon, asked the French to wear the mask in public transport, without obligation but by “civic duty”Monday, June 27. “We need to keep tracking the virus because not doing so makes us increasingly blind to modes of transmission and [son] evolution”lamented the director of WHO Europe.