Data on thousands or more of people infected with coronavirus in 24 hours in any country in the fall and winter are less and less news because they have become commonplace.
In recent days, however, Eastern Europe has attracted the world’s attention: the combination of rising morbidity, very high mortality and a lack of hospital beds has made the region a major epicenter. This has raised the question of the extent to which the chaos that has engulfed countries from Bulgaria and Russia to Hungary should be expected in the capitals of Western Europe.
With its records of infected and increasing deaths, Bulgaria simply fits into the overall picture of the region. The Western media usually explains the low level of trust in institutions and the rise of conspiracy theories as an explanation for why these countries have many vaccines and few are interested.
The data show that this is changing. Interest in vaccines is shyly increasing, or at least moving away from the stalemate, whether due to coercion or the large number of victims, but the question remains whether it is too late.
What does the picture look like in Eastern Europe beyond Bulgaria and is there any reason for optimism?
What the statistics show
Last week, cases of the virus in Eastern Europe exceeded 20 million, according to a Reuters review on Friday. Figures in it show that from Hungary (62% vaccinated) to Ukraine (19%), a number of countries have seen an increase in infections, unprecedented since November last year.
Among the main values in the region, according to Reuters calculations:
– an average of 83,700 new cases per day, a record since November last year;
– with only 4% of the world’s population in Eastern Europe are about 20% of new cases;
– Russia, Ukraine and Romania are three Eastern European countries in the top five in terms of mortality in the last week globally.
Indeed, “record mortality” figures can easily vary. Earlier, the Bulgarian media began to spread an assessment that Bulgaria is the first in terms of mortality in Europe and second in the world. Other analyzes identified her as the first in the world. The Worldometers aggregator ranks it third in the total number of deaths per 1 million people, but in this particular list among the “leaders” are a number of other Balkan and Eastern European countries, according to data from yesterday, November 1: Bosnia and Herzegovina (second), Northern Macedonia (fourth), Hungary (sixth), the Czech Republic (eighth), Romania and Slovakia are in the top 20.
The situation in Russia is also impressive. There, since the beginning of the Delta wave, mortality has not dropped for months, and has even increased with the onset of autumn.
These different places in the assessments, no matter who measures how, only confirm the trend: there are similarities in the situation in the countries of the region.
Russia is hardest hit
Most of the new cases and new deaths come from Russia, where, according to a Reuters analysis, 120 people give a positive sample every 5 minutes. A total of 40 percent of all new cases in Eastern Europe are in Russia. Over 40,000 infected a day has become the norm in the last week; over 1,000 died every day for at least a week and a half.
In Eastern Europe, some experts have watched the events in Russia with concern. The reason is that the first signs of the heavy wave associated with the Delta variant appeared months ago. In September, only the culmination began, which completely stretched the possibilities of doctors. With a very low vaccination rate, Russia tried to impose mass vaccination as early as June – when the EU warned of a dangerous expected wave on the continent – but the 60% target proved unattainable.
Ukraine reported 765 deaths on October 30, shortly before – more than 27 thousand infected. In Romania, 18,863 infections were registered on October 19th, when the death rate was set at 574. Bucharest, as well as smaller cities, say there is no room for hospitals. As a result, Romania has activated the European Civil Protection Mechanism to receive medicines, respirators and others. In addition to EU members Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands and France, neighboring Serbia and Moldova have also sent aid.
And less frequently mentioned countries, with a higher proportion of vaccinated, find themselves in a difficult situation. This applies, for example, to Slovakia (only 46% vaccinated). In Slovakia, with a population of just 5.5 million, there were 5,142 cases on Saturday – more per capita than in seven times the severely affected Ukraine.
Hungary, with 62 percent vaccinated, seems somewhat of an exception, but remains well below the European Union average of 66 percent (and 75 percent for adults). Last autumn, the country went through a very severe wave – with several hundred deaths on individual days – and briefly topped the list of countries with the highest mortality. This convinced some residents to get vaccinated. However, vaccine coverage was insufficient and hospitalizations have increased in recent weeks, forcing authorities to tighten anti-epidemic measures. In Budapest, they are watching with concern that their country is already accepting patients that Romania’s healthcare system cannot afford.
With its very small population, Latvia does not receive attention as severely affected by the pandemic, but the country, where less than 2 million people live and the share of vaccinated is 54% (lower than that of other Baltic judges), registers several thousand infected day. At the end of last week, Latvia was third in the European Union in terms of mortality after Romania and Bulgaria with 178.8 people per million, compared to the European average of 23.8 cases per million. The country also turned dark red on the map of the European Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
What countries do
In Russia, the so-called non-working days are already in force – a week in which almost everything except the sectors critical to national security does not work or is in remote mode. Cities such as Moscow and St. Petersburg combined the scheme with their own partial lockdown; in the Russian capital, this also means closing everything except basic goods and theaters and museums (but the latter can only be visited by people with so-called QR codes, the Russian version of COVID certificates). In practice, a recommendation for the elderly and the chronically ill to stay at home for the next 4 months also comes into force in Moscow.
In Ukraine, the authorities already oblige certain groups of people to be fully vaccinated by November 8: teachers, officials and others must either be immunized or left without pay. Travel by plane, train or some intercity bus requires either proof of vaccination or a negative test.
Measures already taken in Romania include returning in the evening and restricting access to many public places without certificates.
Romania is also trying to introduce a mandatory COVID certificate for civil servants, medical staff and employees of large private companies to be vaccinated or to have regular tests if they have not been ill. However, the government needs the support of parliament, whose upper house rejected the plan last week. The bottom line remains uncertain at a time when the country is in a deep political crisis along with health – a second prime minister is likely to be rejected by parliament after lawmakers ousted Prime Minister Florin Katsu last month. Reuters sources write that the rejection of the nominee Nikolay Chuka, and with him the early elections, are realistic scenarios.
Hungary, which is trying to curb its smaller wave (compared to countries like Romania and Ukraine), announced last week that government officials will be required to be vaccinated. In private companies, employers are given the right to decide whether it makes sense to introduce the same measure.
Is interest in vaccines increasing?
In Romania, for example, the rate of vaccination has almost doubled, coinciding with the shock of a record death of 574 people a day. The data show that 150,600 doses of vaccine were given last Tuesday, of which 111,000 were the first dose. For comparison, 68,749 doses were given a week earlier, of which 36.8 thousand were the first. In October, those who received the first dose increased by almost 10 points.
The balance sheet from Ukraine shows that since the middle of the month, when the vaccination campaign has accelerated, the share of those who received at least one dose has increased by more than 5 points at a very low starting point – from 18 to 23 percent.
Russia is a special case, as there the combination of incentives and coercion has increased by only 26 points (from 13 to 38) the share of those who have chosen to be vaccinated since June, there are two statistics on mortality. The one of the statistical service, which is not officially used, is over 120 thousand people above the data of the Ministry of Health. A 2001 Gallup poll of Russians found that 58 percent of Russians would not get vaccinated.
Even in this highly skeptical society, the proportion of vaccinated has increased by more than two points in just the last 10 days.
This change can be seen beyond the most severely affected countries. In the Czech Republic at the end of last month, the share of doses exceeded the record reached at the end of August. Interest is also returning to countries in the Western Balkans, where, after a sharp increase in the proportion of vaccinated in the summer (or in the spring in the Serbian case), the campaign had stalled as autumn approached. In Serbia, experts also see a link with the introduction of COVID certificates, despite their limited scope – only for restaurants and only after 10 p.m.
Only time can tell if the trend is lasting, but at least for now it gives hope that something can change.
Newly infected – and possibly hospitalized – are increasing and will increase throughout Europe as public life shifts again from open to closed spaces. And countries with above-average coverage in the EU are no exception. For now, however, both excessive pressure on the health care system and grim records in the West seem far away.
Photo: Disinfection in Moscow © Reuters
