Europe was one of the first regions outside of China to be hit by the new coronavirus, and as 2020 draws to a close in a cloud of sadness, a second wave of infections has put Europe back in the pandemic spotlight. The first mass vaccination program hits the road, offering hope.
On December 31, 2019, China alerted the World health Organization for the first time to a new “viral pneumonia” in the city of Wuhan, but Europe was not able to stop the virus from spreading.
The first cases were confirmed in France in late January, and by mid-February, northern Italy was at the center of a pandemic. On March 10, Italy was placed under total lockdown, the strictest control of a Western country since World War II, and nine days later, the death toll in Italy surpassed that of China.
France and Spain followed Italy in imposing a strict blockade, schools were closed, businesses shut down, stations and airports were dead, and Europe’s cities became unusually quiet as governments spent billions of dollars to keep the economy alive and people employed.
The virus swept through nursing homes, dealing a deadly blow to Europe’s most vulnerable people.
Despite the increase in infections, Britain postponed the lockdown for two weeks, which top scientists warned could kill thousands of people, and they called for immediate action.
Neil Ferguson, a professor at Imperial College London’s School of Public Health, said, “If we had taken the blockade a week earlier, we could have cut the final death toll by at least half.”
Britain will end up with the record number of deaths from the new coronavirus in Europe in 2020.
On April 5, British Prime Minister Boris ‘Johnson was hospitalized with a new coronavirus infection and he spent several days in intensive care as the Queen tried to boost national morale.
Queen Elizabeth II said, “The days will get better: we will be reunited with our friends, we will be reunited with our families, we will be reunited.”
By early summer, infections had diminished, Europe began to open up and governments subsidized public outings, but doing so had consequences, and as social gatherings increased, and schools and universities reopened in September, infection rates began to rise again.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said, “Our world has arrived at a painful milestone: a new coronavirus pandemic that has killed a million people.”
By October, Europe coped with a second wave of the pandemic, which proved to be even more deadly than the first. Embargoes were again issued, and several cities saw protest actions.
As the brutal year ended, however, science offered hope. With early trials of three vaccines reporting success rates as high as 95 percent, the United Kingdom became the first Western country to approve and promote mass vaccination with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, and Europe is expected to follow.
This is unprecedented and it clearly shows that the scientific community and governments around the world are capable of fighting emerging threats,” said Dr. Stergios Moschos, a biologist at Northumbria University. We have to think very carefully about where else we want to apply this paradigm and example to other things that threaten our civilization.”
Other vaccines may be approved in the coming weeks, and doctors warn that overcoming pandemics takes time.
“It’s one thing to develop a safe and effective vaccine, it’s another thing to produce enough of it and have it available to everyone who needs it,” said Dr. Ken Kasai, regional director of the World Health Organization for the Western Pacific.
The economic and social costs of pandemics will be felt in the coming years. But scientific efforts have led to an appreciation of normalcy, and a few drops of genetically engineered material offer protection against one of the greatest challenges facing humanity, with the hope that tomorrow will be better.
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