Europe reels under second wave of COVID-19

Taken by surprise

The second wave of COVID-19 cases has taken many EU member states by surprise.

Some of them have blamed lockdown fatigue among the public after weeks of staying home in the spring. After these measures were lifted, many people stopped taking precautionary measures such as wearing face masks, washing their hands and maintaining social distancing.

This summer, tens of millions of tourists visited EU member states, most from other countries within the trading bloc, but also from a dozen nations outside the Schengen Area.

Figures show that the second wave has been driven by young people, with wild parties held by college students making headlines, especially those that took place before new lockdown measures were enforced.

On Thursday, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said travel was not the only factor that caused the second wave, and there have been "many variables".

She said that when the number of cases fell in summer after the first wave, "we obviously relaxed some measures too rapidly".

"We will have to be very careful with lifting measures," she added.

In most EU states, rigorous contact tracing, isolation and quarantine are either non-existent or have been applied loosely and on a voluntary basis. On the Chinese mainland and in East Asian countries and regions such measures have been effective in controlling the virus.

Mike Ryan, executive director of the World Health Organization's Health Emergencies Programme, said that if there is one thing that might change the situation in Europe and North America, it is to ensure that each contact of a confirmed case is quarantined for an appropriate period, in order to break transmission chains.

"If you are a case and you are positive, you should be at home in full isolation or in a clinical care facility. If you know you have been in contact with a case, you should be in full quarantine at home without contact with other people," Ryan said.

Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO's technical lead on COVID-19, said countries cannot rely too much on any one measure.

"What we have seen in some countries is overreliance on some measures more than others," she said, adding that all interventions, from testing, contact tracing to quarantining, need to be used.

Ryan said one thing that differs in the response seen in Asia to that in Europe has been the ability in Asia to follow through on such interventions－in particular, quarantining contacts.

"Once they got the numbers down, they followed through. They didn't start reducing testing centers, they increased testing centers. They didn't start reducing clinical capacity, they increased clinical capacity," said Ryan, an Irish epidemiologist by training.

"In other words, they ran through the finish line and beyond, and they kept running because they knew the race wasn't over. The finish line was false."

Ryan also praised governments in East Asia for providing support for contacts in quarantine, a factor that has not been witnessed to any significant degree in Europe.

He believes that one advantage Asia has is that people and communities have a high level of trust in governments and comply with their instructions.

Tomasz Michalski, an associate professor in the Economics and Decision Sciences Department at HEC Paris, a business school, feels that some government measures are ineffective, such as curfews after 9pm.

"This has meant that for many restaurants and bars, life shifted to 6pm-9pm, with the spread of the virus unchecked," he said.

EU leaders have called repeatedly for coordinated measures, but member states often want control of their own policies despite the fact that most of them have not enforced border restrictions during the pandemic.

"The EU does not have the power to impose sanitation measures on member states," Michalski said.

At a video conference on Thursday, leaders from the 27 member states pledged improved cooperation in the fight against COVID-19, including keeping borders open, better testing and contact tracing, and making plans for the rapid manufacture and distribution of vaccines.

The EU also agreed to finance the transfer of patients across its borders to prevent hospitals being overwhelmed by those with the disease.

Von der Leyen said she understands just how tired and worried people are. "We are all wondering when we will come out of this crisis, but now is the time for patience, for determination and for discipline from all of us, from governments right down to each of us individually," she said.

The various new lockdown measures were introduced after it was announced on Friday that the 19-member eurozone economy expanded by 12.7 percent in the third quarter of this year. However, the impact of this is likely to be short-lived, given the strong second wave of the virus and new lockdowns.

On Thursday, the European Central Bank indicated that it would step up monetary policy next month to counter further economic downturns, but Christine Lagarde, the bank's president, described the European economic outlook as "fairly dark".

"Risks are clearly, clearly tilted to the downside," she said.

Lagarde called for quick agreement on the 750 billion euro ($876 billion) Next Generation EU fund to help member states' economic recovery. However, the European Parliament and European Council failed to reach an agreement on the fund last week.

Andrea Consiglio, a professor of mathematical finance at the University of Palermo in Italy, said the fund will be crucial. Italy, left alone to face market forces, would barely manage its debt, he said.