Is a winter wave of coronavirus infections looming? – The Economist

Oct 18th 2021

TWELVE MONTHS ago the northern hemisphere was about to embark on its first winter of the covid-19 pandemic. In western Europe and America cases were rising rapidly, and scores of deaths were soon to follow. Many countries, including Britain, entered strict lockdowns for the holiday season.

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Today, there is little sign yet that Western governments will reimpose draconian restrictions on behaviour. But covid has not gone away: in Britain cases are nearly as high as they were in January (although the fatality rate is a fraction of what it was). Britain is faring significantly worse than its European neighbours in containing the virus, although if this wave of infections peaks ahead of flu season, Brits may yet be thankful.

Part of the reason that covid is spreading so rampantly in Britain is the government has loosened restrictions faster than in other Western countries, and been slower to vaccinate under-18s. Only in September did Britain start offering jabs to 12- to 15-year-olds; America has been doing so since May. And nightclubs, for example, which include some of the most crowded and poorly-ventilated venues imaginable, are open without restrictions. In Italy clubbers are required to show vaccine certificates and in Spain they must dance in their masks.

Since March 2020 YouGov, a pollster, has asked a representative sample of adults in countries around the world whether they wear a mask in public. Even during 2021, as vaccination rates increased, mask-wearing stayed remarkably firm (see chart below). In France and Italy, three-quarters of people say they wear masks, and in Britain and Germany two-thirds say they do. Even in America, where mask-wearing has been a partisan issue, compliance rose in July in response to rising levels of infections.

Despite worries about waning efficacy, vaccines continue to be highly effective in keeping case-fatality rates low. In western Europe, people 12 and over have received 1.5 doses of a covid-19 vaccine on average. Although in America that figure is 1.4, large pockets of unvaccinated people help fuel the virus. Yet unless it develops a mutation that renders vaccines less effective, booster doses will help to keep the worst at bay. In America 14% of fully-vaccinated people aged 65 and over have received a booster dose. In Britain that figure is 25%. Greater awareness of the power of vaccines may also increase seasonal-flu vaccination rates, as they did in Britain last year.

Not all countries can breathe so easily. Covid continues to claim thousands of lives each day. The Economist's excess-death tracker estimates about 170,000 deaths to the pandemic around the world in the past week. The pandemic is particularly severe in Russia and much of eastern Europe, which have been slower to vaccinate. On Saturday Russia recorded 1,000 deaths from covid, the highest single-day figure since the start of the pandemic (although the official toll is almost certainly an undercount). And, covid will continue to claim the lives of a small share of those who have been fully vaccinated too, such as that of Colin Powell, a former American secretary of state, who died on October 18th.

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Is a winter wave of coronavirus infections looming? - The Economist