Prepare now for fall COVID-19 surge: WHO official

COVID-19 infections have tripled over the past six weeks in Europe, with nearly 3 million cases last week alone, the World Health Organization’s European director said Tuesday.

That’s half of all new cases reported globally, WHO Regional Director for Europe Dr. Hans Kluge said in a statement. Hospitalization rates are also inching upward.

“While hospitalization rates due to COVID-19 have doubled in the same period, intensive care unit admissions have so far remained relatively low,” he said. “However, as infection rates in older groups continue to rise, Europe is still seeing close to 3,000 people die of COVID-19 every week.”

And, Kluge said, the world is flying blind. The uptick is fueled by the newer variants of omicron, particularly BA.5, and it is running amok as testing declines.

“The virus has never gone away,” he told Reuters. “It is still there, it is spreading, it is mutating, and unfortunately it’s still taking a lot of lives.”

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This will continue and could even escalate through the fall and winter, pressuring health care systems still reeling from the 2020 crisis and the subsequent variant waves, as with last year’s delta variant.

Omicron, especially BA.5, is even more transmissible, he emphasized. Even vaccinated and previously infected people are not immune, he said, though the shots still afford protection from serious illness.

“If you haven’t got any shot this year you are no longer protected, particularly with the BA.5 sublineage of the omicron variant, which has some escape to the immunity,” Kluge said.

He pointed to the Southern Hemisphere, in the throes of an active winter flu season on top of continuing COVID-19, as a harbinger of what northern nations could be in for later this year.

“We must continue to monitor and track the evolution of SARS-CoV-2, which remains a highly unpredictable virus,” Kluge said. “Yet most countries in the European Region have stopped or greatly reduced COVID-19 surveillance, creating a dangerous blind spot in our knowledge of how the virus is evolving.”

Now is the time to prepare for the fall surge.

“I therefore urge all countries to continue to strengthen COVID-19 surveillance as part of wider, resilient, population-based surveillance for respiratory viruses and to get ready for the autumn,” Kluge said. “Knowledge has been and remains a vital tool against the virus. Let’s not throw that away.”