The global surge in COVID cases and deaths requires an immediate international response
By Benjamin Mateus
Last week, during the World Health Organization (WHO) press brief, Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director for the WHO emergencies program, observed, “We are not in an epidemiologically stable situation. The virus is still working its way through the human population. A vast majority of people remain susceptible. So, it has not settled down in a pattern that we can predict.” He also highlighted that though the pandemic is raging across Europe and North America, most of the world’s population remains susceptible to the coronavirus.
This week saw the highest number of cases and deaths globally. On Wednesday, 13,579 people succumbed to the infection, and on Thursday, almost three-quarters of a million people were infected. Of the 75.7 million cases of COVID-19, 20.9 million were active cases of infection, with more than 107,000 in critical condition. There are have been 1.676 million deaths thus far.
Europe has registered 22.884 million cases. After a sharp rise in October, cases peaked at 333,344 on November 7. However, limited restrictions and piecemeal non-pharmaceutical interventions employed to turn the curve have led to a tepid decline that has seemed to stall at around 244,663 cases per day. Since November 9, weekly deaths have exceeded 30,000 and over 35,000 per week since November 23.
Long touted as the country that fared better than its European neighbors, Germany has now become the epicenter of the pandemic in Europe with more than 30,000 cases yesterday for a new one-day high. Deaths have also dramatically followed the surge. On December 15, there were around 800 deaths alone, and the seven-day average has seen more than 500 fatalities per day.
Given its experience in the spring with its health system intact, the government enacted the mildest lockdown during the winter surge, leaving shops, offices and factories open. This left the country vulnerable to the devastation being wrought by the pathogen. Christian Kleber, an emergency room physician from Dresden who is in charge of coordinating the redistribution of COVID patients across the region, told the Wall Street Journal, “Our hospitals are at the limit of what they can manage.” The health system is expected to reach capacity at the current pace of infections. In Hanau, Germany, bodies are being kept in metal shipping containers as morgues have reached capacity. The government has moved to impose “a harder” lockdown at least until January 10.
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