Several European countries lifted COVID-19 curbs too ‘brutally’: WHO

Several European countries lifted their coronavirus curbs too “brutally” and are now seeing a rise in cases, the World Health Organization (WHO) warns.

Hans Kluge, the director of WHO Europe, said on Tuesday that a number of European countries including Germany, France, Italy, and Britain lifted their COVID-19 restrictions too soon.

Infections are rising in 18 out of 53 in the WHO European region, he said.

According to the WHO database, the number of new COVID-19 cases in Europe fell sharply after a peak at the end of January, but has been on the rise again since early March.

“The countries where we see a particular increase are the United Kingdom, Ireland, Greece, Cyprus, France, Italy, and Germany,” Kluge said.

He argued the main reason behind the increase was likely the highly transmissible BA2 variant, but in addition, “those countries are lifting the restrictions brutally from too much to too few.”

Over the past seven days, more than 5.1 million new cases and 12,496 deaths have been reported in the WHO’s European region.

That brings the number of cases since the start of the pandemic to almost 194.4 million and the number of deaths to more than 1.92 million.

Kluge said that he remained “optimistic but vigilant” about the pandemic’s development in Europe.

SS