Europe Unprepared as Second Wave of Infections and "Pandemic Fatigue" Strikes Continent

Anesthesiologists have warned that without new restrictions, ICUs in Lazio around Rome and Campania around Naples could be saturated within a month.

As it is, Campania has only 671 hospital beds destined for Covid-19, and 530 are already occupied, said Campania Gov. Vincenzo De Luca. Half of Campania’s 100 ICU virus beds are now in use.

For now, the situation amid the second wave of coronavirus infections is manageable. “But if we get to 1,000 infections a day and only 200 people cured, it’s lockdown. Clear?” he warned this week.

The ICU alarm has already sounded in France, where Paris public hospital workers staged a protest this week to demand more government investment in staffing ICUs, which they said haven't significantly increased capacity even after France got slammed during the initial outbreak.

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“We did not learn the lessons of the first wave,” Dr. Gilles Pialoux, head of infectious diseases at the Tenon Hospital in Paris, told BFM television. “We are running after (the epidemic) instead of getting ahead of it.”

There is some good news despite growing Covid-19 cases in Europe, however. Dr. Luis Izquierdo, Assistant Director of emergencies at the Severo Ochoa Hospital in Madrid, said at least now, doctors know what therapies work.

During the peak of the epidemic in March and April, doctors in hardest-hit Spain and Italy threw every drug they could think of at patients — hydroxychloroquine, lopinavir, ritonavir — with limited success.

“Now we hardly use those drugs as they hardly have any effect,” he said. “So in this sense, we have had a victory because we know so much more now.”

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But treating the virus medically is only half the battle. Public health officials are now dealing with a surge in anti-mask protests, virus negationists and residents who are simply sick and tired of being told to keep their distance and refrain from hugging their loved ones — all alluding to the notion that Europe is suffering from a "pandemic fatigue".

The WHO this week shifted gears from giving medical advice to combat the surge of Covid-19 cases in Europe to giving psychological advice on how to nudge virus-weary Europeans to keep up their guard amid a “pandemic fatigue” that is sweeping the continent.

“Fatigue is absolutely natural. It’s to be expected where we have these prolonged crises or emergencies,” said the WHO’s Butler.

Read also: WHO Warns of a “Pandemic Fatigue” Hitting Europe

The WHO this week put out new advice for governments to consider more social, psychological and emotional factors when deciding on lockdowns, closures or other restrictions — a nod to some in the field who say the mental health toll of lockdowns is worse than the virus itself.

That data, Butler said, “is going to become more important because we have to understand what restrictions we can put in place that will be sustained and adhered to, and acceptable to our populations.”

(Writer: Nicole Winfield) 

Source: https://apnews.com/article/virus-outbreak-pandemics-italy-madrid-eastern-europe-159a68a460337948d25281c153994c70