Europe - Lockdowns are Back

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COVID has rapidly accelerated across Europe over the past three weeks. At first in September European nations focused on implementing "local lockdowns". This quickly moved to "circuit-breaker lockdowns" for two or three week periods across a nation as COVID quickly accelerated. It has now arrived to full national lockdowns for longer periods of time.

Across Europe the new national lockdowns with various degrees of mitigation are taking hold. France faces lockdown amid surging cases. Spain has declared a six month state of emergency. Ireland is moving to its highest restrictions. Scotland is warning a tough lockdown is on its way. Italy is imposing its harshest coronavirus restrictions since spring lockdown as second wave sweeps Europe. Germany which is doing better than the majority of European countries is mulling a return to lockdowns. Country by country full national lockdowns and restrictions are being put into place.

Even Putin has ordered a national mask mandate.

Hospitals and ICUs across Europe are being overrun in a manner reminiscent of the catastrophic spring. The rising COVID cases has become so bad in hospitals that countries such as Belgium are demanding that doctors and nurses with COVID continue to work.

All the while WHO is warning Europe is 'well behind' in fight against Covid-19.

The lockdowns are meeting resistance in many countries -- many people are not happy about a return to lockdowns, curfews, and mitigations. Furious protests have erupted across Europe. Battling crowds shouting "Freedom, Freedom, Freedom", Italian police had to use use teargas to disperse lockdown protests.

The situation in Europe is not going to get better quickly over the upcoming weeks. The lockdowns - even at a national level -- will require several weeks before an easing on medical infrastructure can be seen and the COVID cases stop their rapid rise. This should all be taken as a warning to the U.S. which is just lagging the situation in Europe by four weeks or so.
 
Well, I was going to link Medcram’s latest youtube, #116. But Youtube has already pulled it.

Dr. Seheult posted two new studies showing death rates have dropped in both Europe and USA. Also linked studies on NAC showing benefits in treatment.

Can’t have any good news this close to election
 
Wallet said:
Well, I was going to link Medcram’s latest youtube, #116. But Youtube has already pulled it.

Dr. Seheult posted two new studies showing death rates have dropped in both Europe and USA. Also linked studies on NAC showing benefits in treatment.

Can’t have any good news this close to election
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Here’s the link to medcram’s site, Covid updates are free.

https://www.medcram.com/courses/coronavirus-outbreak-symptoms-treatment

They are probably the best informed, unbiased reporting on treatment options, news etc. from a frontline ER doctor in S California, working with Covid patients.
 
One immediate question should be -- If lockdowns are such a excellent way of addressing a novel pandemic then why didn't the lockdowns from spring in Europe work? How come these countries are suddenly overwhelmed with COVID cases and need to do lockdowns again?

First let's note that counties such as New Zealand, Japan, and South Korea have been very successful with addressing COVID with lockdowns followed by phased re-openings with proper contact tracing and testing. In Europe, Germany has been a leader in the best pubic health response; the only country to implement with contact tracing and testing -- many German schools are testing the students every three days.

Where did Europe go wrong?
Fundamentally European countries opened too early and failed to implement full contact tracing and testing. The published recommendations of 5 criteria that must be met before easing lockdowns was not followed. These criteria very much follow the five points I have regularly outlined for re-opening; non-overloaded hospitals, contact tracing in place, proper testing in place, community spread reduced below 0.8, and a reduction in vectors (infected people in the community) -- however the medical criteria adds one more additional critical point - border controls -- absolutely no admission of people from COVID infected countries without strict quarantine.

This failure leads Europe to where we are today with over-run hospitals, rapidly rising cases and the re-implementation of lockdowns. Germany is in the best shape comparatively to other European countries -- their failure was not having any border controls and letting nearly anyone in - now they are struggling to address the ensuing COVID problems.

The bottom line: Lockdowns following the best scientific principles do work when implemented properly. They fail when a country takes any short-cuts. Nearly all European nations failed to follow best practices for re-opening after a lockdown.

What does this portend for the U.S. in the upcoming weeks?
The U.S. is lagging Europe by abut 4 weeks. We are already seeing new records in rising cases, hospitals in some cities are being overwhelmed, and some states are considering rolling back their phased re-openings. The winter months for the U.S. are likely to be harsh -- especially in a fractured political environment with no coordinated COVID response across the nation with every state taking their own path.
 
KCalhoun said:
It's going to be a nightmare in the USA. Are the deniers still denying? Millions are going to die. Period.
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I think "millions" is overstating it a great deal, but it's safe to say that millions are going to get sick and many will have lifelong conditions as a result. Personally, the latter concerns me more than the former.
 
Just to put all of this in perspective, the human races ability to identify and contain a global pandemic has not improved since Justinian was the Emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire.

Lockdowns have been the go to proven strategy since the 6th century AD. They absolutely save live. Masks too.

This plague is much too far spread to truly contain now. Our race to develop therapies will never beat the speed at which the first waves of the virus spread. By the time an effective vaccine is deployed, without lockdowns, we would have faced millions of deaths.

What people don’t understand for some reason is that hospital capacity is key. If we ever blowout capacity, the death rate will sky rocket.
 
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