The World Health Organization is worried. The WHO Europe office held an information point on the subject this February 15. He uses the words “tidal wave” to describe the progression of the Omicron variant to the east of the continent with a lag of one to two months compared to what has just been experienced in Western Europe.
In Ukraine, in particular, the number of daily cases has soared since early February. It seems to be going down a bit for a few days, but it’s fragile. We are around 40,000 cases per day. And we are obviously only talking about identified cases: screening, in this country of 38 million inhabitants, is much less widespread than in France. The number of deaths reaches 250 per day. And after two years of the pandemic, the mortality rate relative to the number of inhabitants is roughly similar to that of the United Kingdom, therefore quite significantly higher than that of France. And the vaccination rate remains low for a European country: only 35% of the population, rather at the level of certain African countries, such as Angola, Guinea or Mauritania. The WHO is all the more concerned about the arrival of Omicron as the Delta variant is still very present in the countries of Eastern Europe.
The situation is also quite similar in all the countries in the east of the continent in the broadest sense, from the countries of the former Yugoslavia in the Balkans to the Caucasus region, Georgia and Azerbaijan. In these last two countries, the number of contaminations is skyrocketing, just like in Russia (200,000 daily cases at the moment). And even in Belarus, while in this dictatorship, the official figures are far below the reality. At first, President Lukashenko flatly denied the existence of the virus. The WHO notes that the number of cases has doubled in two weeks in six countries in the region, the new epicenter of the pandemic.
The countries of Eastern Europe are those with the heaviest toll for two years. Of the 20 countries with the highest mortality rate, 15 are countries in Eastern Europe, in particular Bulgaria, Bosnia, Hungary or Georgia, already mentioned. In addition, vaccination rates are quite low everywhere, between 25 and 35%. And even among people over 60, it rarely exceeds 40%. In Moldova, an extreme case, the rate of double vaccination is almost nil.
It is not so much a problem of vaccine supply, much more the effect of a reluctance to the vaccine, quite marked in all these countries. The WHO therefore calls for above all not to lift the restrictive measures in the region and this is not easy, a fortiori in Ukraine, since the country has other concerns.
In Ukraine today, the mask remains theoretically compulsory in closed places and public transport. But this is not always applied. Gatherings of more than 50 people remain prohibited. And cafe restaurants are only supposed to open their outdoor terraces. Not won in the middle of winter. The best solution, repeats the WHO, is therefore to overcome reluctance to vaccinate.