France and the UK have been marked as the worst-hit countries in terms of daily COVID-19 cases and it seems like the whole of Europe is hit with the second wave of COVID-19. According to health experts, easing the lockdowns and non-compliance with the regulations has resulted in the re-emergence of the pandemic. As a result of this, many countries are now considering to re-impose lockdown.
The responses to the pandemic are different in each country but in general, this second wave of COVID-19 in Europe is nothing but aggressive allowing the disease to spread to faraway areas. In the last 24 hours, the Solomon Islands have also recorded its first case which was free from the viral spread during the first wave, earlier this year.
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The decision of imposing a second lockdown in Europe is somehow related to loosening the restrictions this summer, allowing travelers to visit other countries and carrying the virus with them.
When this pandemic first hit, many European countries quickly formulated and imposed a pandemic management plan including the lockdown measures and some of them were extremely successful.
In Spain, the government ordered all children below 14 years of age to be kept at home so that they don’t get the virus for a month. In addition to this, Italians were to produce an emergency need certificate whenever they had to leave the house; otherwise, they were asked to remain in their houses.
Many other countries imposed control measures like France restricted all population to spend only one hour outdoor for physical fitness and restricted mobility to within 1km of everyone’s house.
But if all countries were trying to control the new cases, how is that the second wave of COVID-19 has hit Europe? The health experts blame the unavailability of a long-term plan. while many of these control measures were practical and helpful to control the viral spread, they were not planned for the long term.
So once the daily cases started to decline, many of these countries lifted the lockdowns, eased the restrictions, and allowed all public businesses to start operation. It made people assume that the pandemic has ended because there are no new cases in the news, so the use of facemasks, protective gear, and following social distancing also reduced. According to the health experts, all this made the maximum population be highly vulnerable to the pandemic which is why the pandemic has re-emerged in almost all major parts of Europe.
Right now, many countries are re-considering lockdowns and quarantines for their citizens. Madrid and Liverpool are to follow new restrictions to tackle the second wave of COVID-19 among other cities in Europe after recording a high increase in new cases. While many parts of Northern England are already under lockdown as the viral spread has recurred.
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The health experts suggest using a targeted approach as New York City followed to control the viral spread. It identified the areas which are reporting the highest cases and put them under a lockdown. Italy is also following a strong control model, it is conductive massive-scale testing and tracing the contacts to control the new cases. Despite the viral reemergence in the neighboring areas, due to these measures, the new cases reported from Italy are significantly low. It is much better than the situation during the first wave of coronavirus in Italy.
All those countries which formed an emergency response to the pandemic were successful to keep the situation under control. It seems like the governments should learn from their mistakes in the first phase of this pandemic and create a more practical and long-term plan this time.
