London, Europe Brief News – A new wave of COVID-19 started spreading in Europe, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned.
WHO ’s regional data showed that only Europe recorded a rise in COVID-19 cases in the week that ended October 2, clocking an increase of 8 percent from the week before.
“Although we are not where we were one year ago, it is clear that the COVID-19 pandemic is still not over,” the WHO’s Europe director, Hans Kluge, and the ECDC’s director, Andrea Ammon, said in a joint statement on Wednesday
“We are unfortunately seeing indicators rising again in Europe, suggesting that another wave of infections has begun,” they said.
“The potential co-circulation of COVID-19 and seasonal influenza will put vulnerable people at increased risk of severe illness and death, with the likelihood of increased pressure on both hospitals and healthcare workers, already exhausted from almost three years on the front lines of the pandemic,” they said.
“There was no time to lose,” they said, adding that vulnerable groups such as pregnant women, people over 60 and those with co-morbidities, should get vaccinated against both influenza and the coronavirus.
Last week a health official in France said the country had entered an eighth wave of the virus.
