Optimism is spreading in the US as COVID-19 deaths plummet and states relax restrictions and open vaccinations to younger adults. But across Europe, fear is starting with a new wave of infections closing schools and cafes and bringing new lockdowns.
The divergent paths of the pandemic across the two continents may be in part linked to the much more successful introduction of vaccines in the US and the spread of more contagious variants in Europe.
However, health experts in the US say that what is happening in Europe should serve as a warning against ignoring social disassociation or dropping other safeguards too soon.
“Each of these countries has had lows like we have today, and each went through an upward trend after ignoring known mitigation strategies,” says Dr. Rochelle Walensky, Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “They just took their eyes off the ball.”
The result was a sharp increase in the number of new infections and hospital admissions in various European countries in recent weeks.
The number of new COVID-19 cases in Poland has more than doubled since February, straining the health care system and leading to a three-week nationwide freeze announced on Wednesday for malls, theaters, galleries and sports centers.
Italy closed most of the classrooms early this week and expanded areas where restaurants and cafes can only do takeout or delivery. The country’s health experts say they are seeing an increasing number of middle and younger-aged patients.
In France, officials have imposed weekend locks around the French Riviera to the south and the English Channel to the north, and are preparing new restrictions for the Paris region and perhaps beyond, to be announced Thursday.
COVID-19 patients occupy 100% of the standard intensive care hospital beds in the area around the country’s capital.
“If we don’t act, we are on the road to catastrophe,” Remi Salomon, a top official in the Paris Public Hospital Authority, told BFM Television.
Serbia announced a nationwide lockdown for the remainder of the week, closing all non-essential stores and businesses. The country of 7 million people reported more than 5,000 new cases on Tuesday, the highest number in months.
The trends are much more encouraging in the US, where a total of about 537,000 deaths have occurred, more than any other country.
The number of deaths per day in the US has fallen to an average of just under 1,300, down from its high of about 3,400 two months ago. The number of new cases averages about 55,000 per day, after peaking at over a quarter of a million per day in early January.
An empty hallway and row of unused face shields in the closed COVID-19 ICU unit at Mission Hospital in Mission Viejo, California, tell the story of the improved outlook in the US.
At the beginning of this year, the wing was swarming with patients.
“It gives me goosebumps. It’s actually just unreal, because, you know, a month and a half ago our ward was full of super sick COVID patients, many of whom did not survive, ”said ICU nurse Christina Anderson.
The European Union’s overall vaccination efforts lag far behind those of Britain and the US due to shortages and other hurdles. About 1 in 5 people in the US has received at least one dose, while it is less than 1 in 10 in most European countries.
In another troubling turn, many European countries – including Germany, France, Spain and Italy – have suspended the use of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine reports of dangerous blood clots in a small number of recipients, although regulators say there is no evidence that the shot was to blame.
European countries have not been vaccinated quickly enough to stay ahead of the more contagious variants, said Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in Baltimore, Maryland. Those variants also take place in the US.
“Vaccination without a speed limit, 24/7, that is what will protect us from what is happening in Europe,” said Adalja.
He believes it’s too early for states to drop mask mandates, but okay for restaurants and other places to gradually increase capacity.
“You don’t have to do what Texas did,” Adalja said. “You can increase the capacity while keeping the masks in place.”
Texas and a few other states have lifted or plan to lift their statewide mask requirements, while governors in more than half of the states have relaxed other restrictions on restaurants, gyms, and movie theaters in the coming weeks.
Disneyland in Southern California has announced that it will reopen with limited crowds for the first time since the pandemic began in late April. And airlines have had their best weeks since the start of the crisis, saying more people are booking flights for the spring and summer.
Amelia Fowler, one of the many people who get their photos Wednesday at Medgar Evers College in New York City, is looking forward to running errands and returning to a normal routine in her acting job after a dark year.
“It was just literal terror: terror going out of the house, terror going out on the street, terror going around with other people, and the terror has been removed,” she said.
Worried that the threat is not over, Yusuf Lamont, who has received his second dose, says, “It’s not time to just take off masks and dance around.”
“There is a false sense of security with declining numbers and people getting vaccinated. It’s like, ‘Oh, it’s safe to start doing whatever.’ No. It’s a big country. There are 330 million people, ”he said.
Josh Michaud, associate director of global health policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation in Washington, said optimism in the US needs to be cautious.
Europe’s “rapid relaxation of distance requirements in many places, combined with population waiting as they look ahead to the light at the end of the long pandemic tunnel, helped pave the way for the current peaks,” he said.
The lesson for the US, he said, is to vaccinate those at risk as soon as possible, keep an eye out for variants, and “stay slow and steady with relaxing social distance requirements.”
Associated Press video journalist Eugene Garcia in California, reporter Thalia Beaty in New York and AP reporters from across Europe contributed to this report.