The Overseas Situation Report Tuesday 19 October 2021
by Mike Evans
“There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.”
– Colin Powell
As Portugal’s Covid rates fall further back to their early numbers this report is looking at some of the countries where the opposite is happening especially with the issue of deaths as a result of Covid 19.
First we look at Romania in Eastern Europe where covid numbers have been on the increase in the past few weeks. For Romania though the main issue is the number of people dying from the virus. The health crisis in Romania has taken a dramatic turn. The coordinator of Romania’s vaccination campaign, Valeriu Gheorghiţă, says that Romania is already in the same scenario as Italy was last year, writes Cristian Gherasim, Bucharest correspondent.
In the spring of 2020, at the onset of the COVID pandemic in Europe, Italy was the most affected country. The number of infections grew rapidly, and hospitals were overwhelmed.
Another top Romanian official dealing with COVID pandemic – the head of the country’s emergency unit- said that a comparison between the current situation in Romania and that in the Italian region of Lombardy is not exaggerated and admits that the situation is very serious.
After a botched communication campaign, all officials are calling for people to get vaccinated, saying it is the only way to overcome the 4th wave of the pandemic, which has become so virulent because the Delta variant is spreading much more easily.
Hospitals and ICUs across the country are overwhelmed with media constantly reporting that no ICU beds are available. The situation is as such that ICU beds usually become available only after a patient dies.
The European Union has so far sent to Romania 250 oxygen concentrators and over 5,000 bottles of monoclonal antibodies, as aid from the EU’s strategic reserve, for the treatment of COVID patients who are seriously ill. More than 20 fans and oxygen concentrators arrived in the country, according to a statement from the European Commission. The European Commissioner for Crisis Management says that the aid is also a form of reciprocity to Romania’s efforts to provide assistance to other EU countries during the pandemic.
“Since the beginning of the pandemic, the EU Civil Protection Mechanism has coordinated and co-financed the delivery of over 190 million items of personal protective and medical equipment, reinforced hospitals with additional medical staff and delivered vaccines and other essential equipment to more than 55 countries. In addition, the EU created a strategic rescEU medical reserve and distribution mechanism under the umbrella of the EU Civil Protection Mechanism. The reserve enables the swift delivery of medical equipment hosted by Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Romania, Slovenia, Sweden and The Netherlands.”, the EC statement reads.
Though not as bad as Romania, the region of Eastern Europe is by far the worst hit in Europe. Eastern Europe (Lithuania, Romania, Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina) is red showing a spike in COVID cases. These countries have a high number of deaths compared to their populations. Thus, Romania has the highest average, of 16.6. It is the highest average in Europe, but unfortunately, according to the latest data, it is also the highest average in the world.
Romania is followed, in Europe, by Bulgaria, with an average of 12.37 deaths, according to Our World in Data. Lithuania also has a rather difficult situation, with an average of 10.14 deaths, given that the incidence of COVID-19 is high in this country.
On the other hand, in Western Europe, France, Italy, Great Britain, Portugal have clamped down on the pandemic with the death rate being very low. In the UK it is below 2, although the number of cases is comparable to that of the previous wave of the pandemic. The number of deaths in the UK where the population is largely vaccinated is now even 20 times lower.
Meanwhile across the Atlantic we hear the news that former US Secretary of State , Colin Powell has died of complications due to Covid 19 even though he was fully vaccinated against the coronavirus.
But instead of demonstrating that the vaccine isn’t 100 percent effective in preventing death, which was known, his death better serves to show the need to tamp down on coronavirus cases more broadly to help protect those most at risk.
That group included Powell. He was 84 years old when he died, well into the elderly age group that has been most ravaged by the virus. He had also been diagnosed with multiple myeloma, which can reduce the body’s ability to fight infections.
Last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released data showing the effectiveness of vaccines in curtailing new infections and deaths from the coronavirus.
In August, it found, those who were vaccinated were six times less likely to become infected and 11 times less likely to die of covid-19. But the data also showed a disparity in the death toll: The incidence of covid deaths among those age 80 and over was nearly as high as the incidence among the unvaccinated age 50 to 64. This is not to say either that vaccines made no difference even among the most elderly or that the incidence of deaths among vaccinated elderly individuals was large. If we look at one week of the CDC’s data (the one in which the incidence of deaths was highest for those age 50 to 79), we see that the incidence of deaths among the unvaccinated was 21 times higher for those age 50 to 64, 15 times higher for those 65 to 79 and, among those 80 and older, more than four times higher.
Why the difference? For the very reason that so many people last year tried to diminish the danger posed by the virus. Older Americans have always been more at risk from covid, and the effects of the virus are clearly more pronounced with members of that age group even when they are vaccinated.
This should not be an impetus to nihilism, though. It’s not the case that this demonstrates that vaccines are futile or not useful. Instead, it’s a reminder that the virus still poses a risk to the elderly, even when vaccinated, and therefore that the goal should be to tamp down on the spread of the virus broadly. If Powell had been at little risk of contracting the virus because transmission rates were low, he would have been at almost zero risk of dying from it. But, instead, his death comes at a time when more than 80,000 people a day are still contracting the virus and more than 1,500 people are dying from it — about as many people as were dying in early April 2020.
The reason that health experts advocate vaccination is, in part, because it offers increased protection to individuals both from infection and death. But that to some extent is the icing on the cake. The broader advantage in widespread vaccination is that the virus has far less ability to spread, given how well protected the vaccinated are against contracting the virus. This is the goal of reaching herd immunity, creating a situation in which the virus can’t spread because it can’t find hosts without antibodies prepared to fight it.
When the United States achieves herd immunity, 84-year-olds with preexisting conditions will be better protected against death simply because they will be at much lower risk of contracting the virus.
As has long been the case, there are two paths to herd immunity. One involves a vaccine that is safe, free and effective. The other involves more people getting sick and building natural immunity. The risk with the latter, of course, is that it both increases the chances that the virus will spread in a community and it poses a risk to the infected person. There is a risk, in other words, both to the individual and to the community, both of which are ameliorated through vaccination.
It seems inevitable at this moment that Powell’s death will prompt new indifference to the vaccine, as though his death somehow proves that the vaccines don’t work. The lesson we should learn instead is that the vaccines work best when they work broadly and that, had Powell been protected both by the vaccine and by low rates of infection in his community, he might still be alive.
The arguments surrounding vaccinations had been going on for years long before Covid 19 appeared but there is overwhelming evidence from the medical profession that vaccination is by far the best way to beat the virus.
Until the next time Stay Safe.
Total Cases Worldwide – 241,615,106
Total Deaths Worldwide – 4,916,812
Total Recovered Worldwide – 218,830,885
Total Active Cases Worldwide – 17,867,409 (7.4 % of the total cases)
Total Closed Cases Worldwide – 223,747,697
https://www.worldometer.info/coronavirus/
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