Third wave in Europe Italy going into lockdown

[Mintypylonsfryingsurplus]

Saw today ( dont watch news much now) that some countries in Europe e.g Italy are headed for third wave or going into lockdown. Will we follow as we are usually behind these places by a few weeks. Also Brazil recording highest ever deaths?

I think it entirely depends how many of the priority groups have been vaccinated by the time we come out of lockdown. If the majority of groups 1-6 have had one or- better yet- two doses, then we'll hopefully avoid a lot of serious cases.

We had a second wave which was higher in the north in October/November but that seems to have been forgotten about once it hit London in December. The hospital I work in never recovered from that heading into the December/January wave.

We are in a good position with our vaccinations and the fact we’ve been in lockdown for two months. We are opening up cautiously. Cases will rise but hopefully as what is happening so far hospital admissions and serious illness are reduced.

@ErrolTheDragon

I was talking to a French colleague - they have a 6pm curfew and only allowed out for an hours exercise within 1km of their house

The 1800-0600 curfew is correct but just to be clear the exercise rule you mention certainly is not in force though out France (it applied during the confinements and it might apply in a couple of areas under increased restrictions, not sure, but it's most definitely not a nation wide thing at the moment).

Way behind on vaccinations ..

True, not great but improving very rapidly....for context 300k plus done on Friday alone, 1.5 million vaccinated in the 7 days up to last Thursday, 2.2 million of the population have now had two vaccinations..total vaccinations given over 7 million.

she sounded quite despairing of French politicians

We will see, there's certainly an increasing amount of from many tonight over why Paris, given it's case numbers and hospital situation, is remaining free of the sort of restrictions that have already been imposed on the likes of Nice and areas in the north east of the country... It's also getting hard to see how a third lockdown can be avoided before the vaccination programme takes effect.

The thing that will stuff us is travel.
It's ok saying we are doing well with vaccines but travellers can take and bring home anything. And theres no real quarantine.

I'm glad to hear the vaccination numbers are improving in France, that's good news.

@ssd

The thing that will stuff us is travel. It's ok saying we are doing well with vaccines but travellers can take and bring home anything. And theres no real quarantine.

We're still on an international travel ban. Not that you'd know it from the pictures of airports, they can't all be on essential travel. I just know people are going to go mad when restrictions lift, thats my only worry with it all really.

We're still on an international travel ban. Not that you'd know it from the pictures of airports, they can't all be on essential travel.

UK? Those pictures are very misleading.

Travel for any work is allowed, even internationally.

Heathrow is only handling about 10% of the passengers it sees in normal times...As a result the whole aviation industry is absolutely on it's knees.

There's quite rightly increased checking on arriving passengers by Border staff and the press are happy to publish pictures of the resultant queues without providing any context.

Will we follow as we are usually behind these places by a few weeks
Each country is following their own path now. Just because we were behind Italy a year ago, it doesn't mean me will be now. So many factors such as lockdowns or other restrictions weather, and (the huge one) vaccinations, will affect waves in different places. Also anecdotally the Italian system is very lax and a very large number of people simply do not comply with lockdown.

It is DEFINITELY not worth comparing us to Brazil. Brazil have been in a constantly high state since more or less the beginning, even at the lowest they were recording 400 deaths per day, and then the president declared that they were in the tail end of the disease and from what i can tell just stopped bothering with any sort of mitigation. Their vaccination programme is barely off the ground.

See attached graph of vaccines per day per 100 people for UK, Italy and Brazil.

You can see different countries on the website as well, if they publish vaccine data.

Source: ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations?country=BRA~GBR~ITA

Italy does seem to be having a 4th wave.. depending if you count the post Christmas hump they had as the 3rd small wave.

@Quartz2208

Surely they are behind us - we had found the UK variant and it hit us hard. We went into lockdown and are coming out alongside a robust vaccine programme.

They havent spent the first part of 2021 under restrictions

Why should we follow them?

Pretty much this. It's a very mixed pattern across the EU; some countries like Czechia are having a really awful time while Ireland looks back in control. The issue of whether and what restrictions were put in place to deal with the rising UK variant cases; we already had a big wave from that and know the vaccines help against it. Testing levels are pitiful in some EU countries with very high positivity rates, so the figures are worse than they look. UK followed then before because the first and second wave infections came from the EU (mostly Spain, Italy, France) but this time had the third wave first. The picture changes at different times, but right now the EU issues are the UK's December issues.

I don't think they are behind us. They are ahead of us. We have had 2 waves. They are approaching 3rd.

The "waves" are all artificial based on the restrictions and easing each country has done, not the natural spread of the virus through a population. This is why all the talk of waves during this pandemic has annoyed the hell out of me. We are making these "waves".

@Quartz2208

Surely they are behind us - we had found the UK variant and it hit us hard. We went into lockdown and are coming out alongside a robust vaccine programme.

They havent spent the first part of 2021 under restrictions

Why should we follow them?

they have, Germany, france & many countries in europe have been under some restrictions, no mass gatherings, bars, curfews, travel.

considering that most people in the UK have been doing what they want in recent weeks, i'd not be quite so complacent.

the issue is the kent variant is now taking a strong hold in europe but even with infection rates of 20 or 25k per day, that is way way behind our 60k plus daily infections.

Friends in Italy (Italians, not expats) have been carrying on pretty much as usual in and out if family houses, going to second homes in the South for weekends etc. And vaccination programme woeful.
Why the assumption we inevitably ‘follow’ them?

I thought that Europe hadn't really been hit by the UK variant yet. The USA is still to be hit. There is a watch and wait to see if the same happens there as it did here. USA vaccination programme going well though.

The "waves" are all artificial based on the restrictions and easing each country has done, not the natural spread of the virus through a population. This is why all the talk of waves during this pandemic has annoyed the hell out of me. We are making these "waves".

It annoys me too.

Oh and the next so-called “wave” will come along in a couple of weeks’ time when the effect of sending one fifth of the population into crowded spaces with unreliable testing and insufficient safety measures becomes clear.

@borntobequiet

Oh and the next so-called “wave” will come along in a couple of weeks’ time when the effect of sending one fifth of the population into crowded spaces with unreliable testing and insufficient safety measures becomes clear.

I wonder what the picture would have been like if we had waited until after the Easter holiday? Lots of posts I’ve read say they aren’t following the rules now schools are back, opting out of tests and mask wearing in schools and plenty will travel and mix over the two week break.

We have been doing so well with the vaccine roll out, rushing mass gatherings and opening things up when we are so close seems counter active to me.

Is there also any evidence that the "UK/Kent" variant actually started here or was first detected here? It may have come from Europe and we do a lot more genome testing and picked it up? If it started in any other county but the one that has frequent travel to mainland Europe

@ZoBo123

Is there also any evidence that the "UK/Kent" variant actually started here or was first detected here? It may have come from Europe and we do a lot more genome testing and picked it up? If it started in any other county but the one that has frequent travel to mainland Europe

It's probable that the UK could pick up other variants first because of the higher genome testing levels, but in the case of the Kent variant it's very unlikely given the pattern and timings of how it took off in the UK versus Europe.

The situation is completely different now. Europe is having a wave of the Kent variant, which is what hit us in October and we have been in lockdown all winter because of it. They are behind us, apart from a couple of weeks at Christmas most of Europe haven’t had strict lockdowns like we have, they have all been allowed to mix with other households. We also have a much more advanced vaccine program.

At the beginning I think waves and infections would follow other country's but the virus is here and been for a while so it's not as simple as waves following other countries now.

@secretllama

I don't think they are behind us. They are ahead of us. We have had 2 waves. They are approaching 3rd.

The "waves" are all artificial based on the restrictions and easing each country has done, not the natural spread of the virus through a population. This is why all the talk of waves during this pandemic has annoyed the hell out of me. We are making these "waves".

That's very true.

I also think we're ahead rather than behind now.

We didn't do a good job of squashing our '2nd wave' in November but I think Jan/Feb was still our 3rd wave.

Italy, France, Germany were much lower than us for weeks at the start of the year. They're being hit harder now as we decline.

They don't seem to be being hit by the high death rates alongside the high numbers like we were though. Maybe it will come but it gives me hope that vaccinating the most vulnerable (think those countries have done that at least?) makes a huge difference. The vaccines were ready just too late to help us in our '3rd wave'. If we get a 4th then hopefully it will just be cases that are high, not hospitalizations and deaths.

@ZoBo123

Is there also any evidence that the "UK/Kent" variant actually started here or was first detected here? It may have come from Europe and we do a lot more genome testing and picked it up? If it started in any other county but the one that has frequent travel to mainland Europe

I don't think so. From following French news, it has been increasing there in recent times.

I don't know about anywhere else in Europe.

UK and Ireland have had this variant since December.