The European Union’s public health agency says Covid-19 infections across Europe are almost back to levels seen in March when the outbreak began its peak.
Andrea Ammon, head of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) told European Union MPs: ‘We are almost back to numbers that we have seen in March. The virus has not been sleeping over the summer. It did not take vacation.’
Reuters reported that Ammon said this week’s data showed that across Europe there were 46 cases per 100 000 people.
Infections in March began growing steadily to about 40 per 100 000 people at the end of the month, according to ECDC data, and kept increasing to around 70 per 100 000 by the end of April.
Ammon indicated that the current increase of cases was due in part to more testing.
New cases also involved largely younger people, she said, a new pattern that had resulted in stable hospitalization numbers, as the illness was more serious for older people who were worst affected in March and April.
However, Ammon said hospitalisations were now growing again, also signalling spikes in cases among the elderly.
The ECDC data – from 27 EU countries, and Britain, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein, varied greatly from 2 to 176 per 100 000 people.
She emphasised the importance of sustaining health measures such as social distancing and frequent hand washing.
Positive cases in South Africa grew yesterday by 2 420 to a cumulative total of 633 015 (with 554 887 recoveries). Deaths rose by 174 to 14 563.
The highest tally of cases is in Gauteng (211 678), followed by KwaZulu-Natal (114 034), the Western Cape (106 582) and the Eastern Cape (86 489).