Expectations of Europe's Second Coronavirus Surge

"The resurgence in cases will go for quite a few months. [But] it will probably never get to the same level as the first big wave in spring."                                       "Although we've seen hospitalizations going up in some countries, it is not anywhere near the situation in March and April. ICUs are not clogged and health services now have much better planning and response times. So, I am optimistic we will not see the big, horrible scenes we saw in March and April, but we will see a lot more cases."                                                                                                      "I don't see the need for moving back to a full suppression strategy. That was justified when the ICUs and hospitals were full, but that is not the case now. As long as hospitals can cope, there is no need for such drastic measures."              "Because most plans were geared towards flu, they were mostly mitigation plans. They didn't have suppression tools, with measures like lockdowns and so on."      "In around 2015, the World Health Organization came out with the concept of the famous Disease X; the idea we should plan flexibly for a novel pathogen. That was much closer to what we're seeing with COVID-19, and the countries that bought into that kind of planning did have the suppression idea in their pandemic plans. The countries that implemented very tough measures early were the ones with better preparedness plans."                                                                                     "In a way, we're lucky. It's nothing like the 1918 Spanish Flu or smallpox and cholera in the 1800s. The problem is we didn't take very seriously the plans of Disease X. This is something that, in the future, I think we are going to take much more seriously."                                                                                                                Sergio Brusin, principal expert, European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control

He's the man. the lead expert co-ordinating Europe's response to the global pandemic. And in his great knowledge, he predicts a "continued resurgence" of cases this winter across Europe, but remains "optimistic" that another spike in the death rate will not occur. The "horrible scenes" witnessed throughout Europe, but particularly in Italy and Spain, as the virus overwhelmed hospitals in March and April weren't likely to see a repeat, not in the face of experience that has resulted in improved health-care capacity and planning.

This expert credits the public heeding the best advice of epidemiologists and other health experts who persuaded their various governments to go into lockdown, convincing their populations to practise diligent social distancing and to react at various levels of government to local outbreaks for gaining control of the initial wave of SARS-CoV-2. He was the leading European expert, and from his official post surveilling and recommending response strategies, he warned the U.K. in early March that Britain would succumb to the same trajectory as did Italy, urging the government to react swiftly to avoid that outcome.

It took two weeks, until March 23 for government to act, and by that time community transmission of the coronavirus was widespread. According to Dr. Brusin, what distinguished states in Europe in their coping mechanisms was the degree to which the pandemic plans were "up to date", and how swiftly brought into play. The degree to which national plans accepted expert strategies for "suppressing the virus" rather than just "mitigating" the impact was critical.

The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control was initiated for the purpose of coordinating disease outbreak response in Europe following the 2003 SARS epidemic, and since then it has played a vital role in response to COVID-19 in the area of data and information sharing, and strategy formation, recommending from the outset how most western European countries proceeded in ramping up social distancing and similar containment measures, in accordance with how widespread the virus became locally. Determined by thorough testing and contact tracing.

Britain's first action was to adopt a strategy of "contain, research, delay, mitigate". Which was transitioned to now reflect the ECDPC approach, following the spring crisis. Countries across Europe have utilized the ECDC's latest weekly data set to track the epidemic and adjust their international travel policies. The once-weekly data set indicates that infection rates across the continent increased continuously for the 31 days to August 19.

Hospital admissions were increased in six of the 18 countries that had seen a rise in confirmed case numbers, while deaths had risen in Belgium and Romania. A country's ability to maintain case numbers under control this winter, according to Dr. Brusin, would be determined by a population's behaviour. And, as far as he is concerned, Europe could have been hit by a much more lethal pathogen than COVID-19.

"What is really driving the [current] resurgence is the fact that we have still quite a few gatherings of people. In most of the countries where the resurgence is significant, it comes mostly from weddings, bars and discos; places where quite a lot of people are mixing. It is also relevant that a lot of the new cases are among young people. They are less vulnerable, but they will pass it to older groups. There is a particular need to protect the vulnerable."