COVID wave looms in Europe as booster campaign ramps up slowly

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With the cooler weather, a new wave of COVID-19 appears to be brewing in Europe, with public health experts warning that vaccine fatigue and confusion over the types of vaccines available are likely to limit the uptake of booster shots.

The omicron subvariants BA.4/5 that dominated this summer are still behind most infections, but newer omicron subvariants are gaining ground. Hundreds of new forms of omicron are being tracked by scientists, World Health Organization (WHO) officials said this week.

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WHO data released late Wednesday showed cases in the European Union (EU) reached 1.5 million last week, up 8% from the previous week, despite a dramatic drop in testing. The number of cases continues to fall worldwide.

The number of hospitalizations in many countries in the 27-nation bloc as well as in Great Britain has increased in recent weeks.

For the week ending October 4, COVID-19 hospitalizations with symptoms in Italy increased by nearly 32%, while ICU admissions increased by about 21% compared to the previous week, according to data published by the independent scientific foundation Gimbe have been assembled.

In the same week, COVID hospitalizations in the UK increased by 45% compared to the week before.

Vaccines matched to Omicron were launched in Europe in September, with two types of vaccines targeting both the BA.1 and BA.4/5 subvariants, which are available alongside existing first-generation vaccines. In the UK, only the BA.1 cropped shots have been given the green light.

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European and UK officials have only approved the latest boosters for a select group of people, including the elderly and those with weakened immune systems. Complicating matters further is the “choice” of the vaccine as a booster shot, which is likely to cause confusion, public health experts said.

But willingness to get yet another shot, which could be a fourth or fifth for some, is waning.

“For those who are less concerned about their risk, the message that it’s all over, combined with the lack of a major publicity campaign, is likely to reduce uptake,” said Martin McKee, professor of public health in Europe at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

FALSE FEELING OF SECURITY

“So I’m afraid the uptake will be a bit lower overall.”

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“Another confounding factor is that a fairly high proportion of the population may also have had an episode of COVID in recent months,” said Penny Ward, visiting professor of pharmaceutical medicine at King’s College London.

Some may mistakenly feel that if they complete a full basic course and then contract COVID, they will remain immune, she added.

Around 40 million doses of vaccines manufactured by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna have been shipped to member states since September 5, when the introduction of new vaccines began in the European Union, according to the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).

However, weekly vaccine doses administered in the EU were only between 1 million and 1.4 million in September, compared with 6 to 10 million per week in the same period last year, ECDC data showed.

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Perhaps the greatest challenge is the perception that the pandemic is over, creating a false sense of security.

“There must be some complacency that life appears to have returned to normal – at least in relation to COVID and people now have other financial and war-related concerns,” said Adam Finn, chair of ETAGE, an expert group that advises the WHO Vaccine-preventable diseases in Europe.

He added that some lawmakers dropped the ball too.

Italy’s Gimbe Science Foundation said the government, which is due to be replaced soon after an election, was ill-prepared for the autumn-winter season, stressing that a publication on the government’s handling of the pandemic had been blocked.

The Department of Health declined to comment.

Meanwhile, UK officials last week warned that a renewed spread of flu and a resurgence of COVID-19 could put pressure on the already stretched National Health Service (NHS). (Reporting by Ludwig Burger in Frankfurt, Natalie Grover and Jennifer Rigby in London, Emilio Parodi in Milan, editing by William Maclean)

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