Category: Europe
European Coronavirus News
Slovakia: Covid lockdown announced for areas hardest hit by virus
Slovakia on Monday reimposed coronavirus restrictions in the hardest-hit parts of the country amid the latest surge of infections. More...
Latvia: one month strict Covid lockdown announced
Latvian Prime Minister Krišjānis Kariņš told reporters that from Monday, October 21, for four weeks or until November 15, an especially strict Covid-19 lockdown will come into force in Latvia. More...
UK ZOE app reports the highest UK Covid daily case rate ever recorded
The UK Covid App ZOE is reporting 76,402 daily Covid cases today, a figure that is higher than the previously reported official peak of 68,192 daily Covid cases on the 8th January 2021. More...
BMJ: One in seven children may still have Long Covid symptoms 15 weeks after infection
Up to one in seven (14%) children and young people who caught SARS-CoV-2 may have symptoms linked to the virus 15 weeks later, suggest preliminary findings from the world’s largest study on long Covid in children, led by UCL and Public Health England researchers. More...
Preprint: Increases in COVID-19 are unrelated to levels of vaccination across 68 countries and 2947 counties in the United States
“At the country-level, there appears to be no discernable relationship between percentage of population fully vaccinated and new COVID-19 cases in the last 7 days. More...
UK ONS: Natural infection by Covid provides a similar level of protection to two vaccine doses
UK Office of National Statistics: “Two vaccination doses provided a similar level of protection to previous natural infection during the Delta-dominant period”
Modelled risk ratios of testing positive for COVID-19 by COVID-19 vaccine exposure, when the Delta variant was dominant, UK, 17 May to 14 August 2021
- there was no evidence that the reduction in risk of infection from two doses of either vaccine differed from that of previous natural infection
- two doses (14 days or more previously) of Pfizer-BioNTech reduced the risk of testing positive by 73% (95% confidence interval: 70% to 76%) in the Delta period, compared with 80% (95% confidence interval: 74% to 85%) in the Alpha period
- two doses (14 days or more previously) of Oxford-AstraZeneca reduced the risk of testing positive by 62% (95% confidence interval: 58% to 66%) in the Delta period, compared with 76% (95% confidence interval: 62% to 85%) in the Alpha period
- the reduction in risk 14 days or more after second dose was significantly higher with Pfizer-BioNTech compared with Oxford-AstraZeneca
- the risk reduction from two doses of either vaccine was greater than from one dose (21 days or more previously)
UK ONS report: Coronavirus (COVID-19) Infection Survey Technical Article: Impact of vaccination on testing positive in the UK: October 2021
Winter is here. Three European nations see their highest ever Covid case rates
Three European nations, Russia, Latvia and Romania, have recorded their highest ever Covid case rates since the pandemic began, and at least eight European nations are currently seeing their highest Covid case rates for six months. More...
UK ONS: one in sixty people infected with Covid, worst infection rate since January 2021
The prevalence of COVID-19 infections in England increased to around 1 in 60 people in the week ending Oct 9 2021, Britain’s Office for National Statistics said on Friday, reaching its highest level since January 2021. More...
UK: start to pandemic “worst public health failure ever” – a failure that is still ongoing
“The UK’s failure to do more to stop Covid spreading early in the pandemic was one of the country’s worst public health failures, a report by MPs says.