[News] Infections rise in Europe and attempts are being made to accelerate the rate of vaccination

[#Steeven.™]

Belgium is going through a third wave of the pandemic.

The incidence of coronavirus infections continues to increase in Europe, as authorities try to accelerate the rate of vaccination, a complicated task, among other reasons due to the shortage of vaccines and the confusion about whether any of them, such as Astra Zeneca, is applied restricted to certain age groups and to which ones, an aspect on which there is no unified criterion either.

Italy registered 17,567 new coronavirus infections in the last twenty-four hours, an increase in line with those of these days, and 344 deaths, the Ministry of Health reported this Saturday

Regarding vaccines, 12'652,847 people have already received the injection, especially among health personnel and the elderly, but those completely immunized, with both doses, are only 3'853,704, according to official data.

The media reports that a third of those over 80 have not received a dose.

The objective now is to give the highest priority to these elderly people to guarantee their safety, and to accelerate the campaign, still below the half a million daily injections expected in mid-April (currently around 300,000 daily).

In Belgium, which is going through a third wave of the pandemic, the cumulative incidence stands at 505.3 cases per 100,000 inhabitants in the last fourteen days, according to the Sciensano public health institute. The average number of deaths per day in the last week reached 41.1 deaths, while cases reached 3,594 per day and hospitalizations were 250.3 each day.

Regarding vaccination, 1,677,523 people have received at least one dose, representing 14.6% of the po[CENSORED]tion, but only the two doses have been given to 605,395 individuals, 5.3%.

In the Netherlands, more than 3 million doses have already been used to vaccinate 17 million people against COVID-19, although it is not clear how many people have already received the two injections necessary to achieve protection.

So far in Greece there have been 2,114,222 vaccinations. 12.7% of the 11 million inhabitants of the country have received the first dose of the vaccine and 6.5% both.

Since the pandemic began, Greece has registered 290,964 cases and 8,758 deaths from coronavirus.

This Friday, according to the latest available data, Greece confirmed 2,747 new cases after the analysis of 57,370 tests, the vast majority of them rapid tests.

Although this figure reduced the positivity rate, Greece again broke its record for intubated patients by reaching 790 as ICUs continue to battle weeks of saturation.

While in Germany, the cumulative incidence in seven days rose to 120.6 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, compared to 110.4 yesterday and 131.4 a week ago, with 24,097 new infections in the last 24 hours, almost 6,000 more than the last Saturday.

The death toll in one day rose to 246, after 120 a week ago, according to data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) of virology updated this morning.

The president of the RKI, Lothar Wieler, pointed out that there are other factors, such as the occupation of the UCIS, updated to the day, that show the evolution of the pandemic, and in this sense he spoke of a “very, very serious” situation.

Until Saturday in Germany, 4,831,522 people had received the two doses of the vaccine - 5.8% of the po[CENSORED]tion - and 112,204,176 (14.7%), at least one.

France set a new daily record of vaccinations with 510,000 on Friday, announced the Minister of Health, Olivier Véran, so that there are already more than 10.5 million people who have received at least one dose, 15.7% of the po[CENSORED]tion.

Regarding the epidemic situation, the most significant thing is that the tension remains at a very high level in hospitals, and in particular in the ucis, with a high volume of infections. This Friday 41,243 cases were reported, in line with what happened in the previous days (on Wednesday and Thursday together there were 84,999) and 301 deaths in hospitals (343 the day before).