LIKE A STORY-BOOK villain, the covid-19 pandemic has a habit of fighting back from the brink of defeat. Last summer politicians were quick to assume that the coronavirus had been squashed, only for a second wave to engulf much of Europe and North America in the autumn. Then, as vaccine programmes got under way in December, new mutations of SARS-CoV-2 emerged that may lower the efficacy of those vaccines. Today a third wave of infections is sweeping through Europe, forcing many governments to impose another round of lockdowns. From midnight on March 19th, 21m people in France will enter a new month-long lockdown, on top of a nationwide curfew that has been in place since January 16th. Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, warned that her country would probably need to apply an “emergency brake” and reimpose a lockdown.
The recent rise in global cases is worrying. They fell by half between January 11th and February 20th, but have since risen by 30% from that low point. Cases are currently highest in Europe, particularly in eastern Europe. Both Estonia and the Czech Republic are recording more than 100 new cases per 100,000 people a day. In the EU as a whole, that rate is 31 per 100,000, not far below the mid-January peak. Hospitals beds in the worst-affected places are full. Cases are also surging in Latin America, where they are up by a third since February.
There are at least two possible explanations for this latest wave. First, as vaccines were rolled out and case numbers fell in many places, people may have let down their guard. Longer days in the northern hemisphere may also be encouraging people to socialise. Yet in the EU and Latin America, mobility data from Google shows that footfall in shops and on public transport—just the kind of places where SARS-CoV-2 is most likely to spread—remains at the average level for the period since October 2020.
The second cause may be the spread of new, more contagious, variants. The one first found in Kent, England, known as B.1.1.7, is thought to be around 30% more transmissible and may be deadlier. Since its genome was sequenced on September 20th it has accounted for 55% of all cases in Britain. Border controls in Europe have failed to stop its spread. It was detected in the Czech Republic in January and has accounted for 80% of cases sequenced in the country since then. In France, 60% of the sequenced cases since February have been this variant. Perhaps more worrying is B.1.351—first found in South Africa—which has been shown to be better able to avoid antibodies generated by vaccines. Since February it has accounted for 5% of cases sequenced in France and 8% in Belgium.
Countries that have succeeded in rolling out vaccines quickly have, for now, avoided surges in new cases. According to the latest vaccination figures gathered by Our World in Data, a website, 15 countries have so far jabbed more than a quarter of their adult population. None of them show signs of a resurgence of infections. (see chart). In Britain nearly half of adults have had at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine. In America two-thirds of people over 64 have received a jab. Last week President Joe Biden announced that all adults will be eligible for a first dose by May 1st, his 100th day in office. That means increasing vaccinations from 2.5m to at least 4m people per day. On March 18th the White House announced that America would be sending 2.5m doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine—American approval of which is awaiting completion of a US-based trial—to Mexico and a further 1.5m doses to Canada. Small beer when compared to the 1.2bn doses of vaccine, of all types, it expects to be delivered this year.
In the European Union the vaccination campaign has faltered. Just 11% of the adult population has had one or more jabs; the effort has not been helped by confusion over the AstraZeneca vaccine. Having at one point claimed it was “quasi-ineffective” on older people, France changed its mind. Last week use of the vaccine was halted across much of the EU because of worries that it might cause rare blood-clots in some people; they resumed after the European Medicines Agency declared on March 18th that its benefits outweighed the possible risks. The EU hopes to offer vaccines to 70% of adults by the "end of summer" (ie, by September 21st). To do so its members will have to double their current vaccination rate to about 2m people per day.
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March 19, 2021 at 11:00AM
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Covid-19 cases are rising again in much of the world - The Economist
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