Houses per 100,000
in the last 14 days
Belgium has postponed
all non-essential hospital
Work to deal with the influx
of new Covid-19 patients.
About a fifth of
Spain’s intensive care beds are
already occupied by
Covid-19 patients.
Cases rise faster in
the Czech Republic as
anywhere else in Europe.
Doctors fear there a
Lack of medical staff.
Belgium has postponed
all non-essential hospital
Work to deal with the influx
of new Covid-19 patients.
Houses per 100,000
in the last 14 days
About a fifth of
Spain’s intensive care beds are
already occupied by
Covid-19 patients.
Cases rise faster in
the Czech Republic as
anywhere else in Europe.
Doctors fear there a
Lack of medical staff.
Houses per 100,000
in the last 14 days
Belgium has postponed
all non-essential hospital
Work to deal with the influx
of new Covid-19 patients.
Cases rise faster in
the Czech Republic as
anywhere else in Europe.
Doctors fear there a
Lack of medical staff.
About a fifth of
Spain’s intensive care beds are
already occupied by
Covid-19 patients.
Belgium has postponed
all non-essential hospital
Work to deal with the influx
of new Covid-19 patients.
Houses per 100,000
in the last 14 days
Cases rise faster in
the Czech Republic as
anywhere else in Europe.
Doctors fear there a
Lack of medical staff.
About a fifth of
Spain’s intensive care beds are
already occupied by
Covid-19 patients.
Source: European Center for Disease Prevention and Control, New York Times case database
LONDON – Poland has turned its largest stadium into an emergency hospital. The number of Covid-19 patients in Belgium and the UK has doubled in two weeks. And doctors and nurses in the Czech Republic are falling ill at an alarming rate.
When new cases of the virus began to appear across Europe last month, hospitals were initially spared the mass influx of patients they had survived early spring. Some suggested that the virus had become less deadly or that older, more vulnerable people were being screened.
But a second wave of serious illnesses is here, as new data released Thursday shows that the pandemic is still dangerous and that adherence to control measures over the next few weeks will be critical to keeping hospitals from going for the second Times overrun this year.
Where people are sick from the coronavirus
|
country |
Patients in the hospital per 100,000 |
Spring summit |
% of the spring peak |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Czech Republic |
35 |
4th |
882% |
|
Spain |
29 |
||
|
Belgium |
22nd |
50 |
43% |
|
Bulgaria |
21st |
6th |
381% |
|
Poland |
21st |
9 |
230% |
|
Hungary |
18th |
7th |
249% |
|
France |
16 |
48 |
34% |
|
21 European countries |
14th |
31 |
45% |
|
Italy |
13 |
55 |
24% |
|
Slovenia |
13 |
6th |
226% |
|
Croatia |
12 |
9 |
136% |
|
Slovakia |
12 |
4th |
285% |
|
United States |
11 |
18th |
61% |
|
Portugal |
11 |
13 |
83% |
|
United Kingdom |
10 |
30th |
33% |
|
Austria |
8th |
12 |
68% |
|
Ireland |
6th |
18th |
31% |
|
Luxembourg |
5 |
35 |
fifteen% |
|
Latvia |
4th |
2 |
163% |
|
Estonia |
3 |
12 |
23% |
|
Denmark |
2 |
9 |
23% |
|
Finland |
1 |
4th |
23% |
|
Norway |
1 |
6th |
10% |
|
Iceland |
0.3 |
12 |
2% |
Source: European Center for Disease Prevention and Control. Hospital data for Europe includes 21 countries reporting daily hospital occupancy data to the ECDC. Germany, the Netherlands and others are omitted. The spring peak is the highest since March and April, with the exception of Hungary, where data collection began in May. Current patients in hospitals reflect the latest available data.
The number of Covid-19 patients in hospitals across the continent is still below half of its peak in March and April, but is steadily increasing every week, according to the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control. People in much of Europe – including larger countries like France, Italy, Poland and Spain – are now more likely to be hospitalized with Covid-19 than in the US.
Bruno Ciancio, the head of disease surveillance at the center, said he was concerned that some of the countries most affected at the moment – including the Czech Republic, Poland and Bulgaria – were not as affected this spring and may not have or may not have expanded their hospital capacity Intensive care units.
“The signals were all there in September,” said Mr Ciancio. “At this point it is very important that all Member States prepare their hospitals for the increased demand.”
Hospital stay rates are a key measure of the severity of the pandemic. Rates rise and fall days or weeks behind the number of new infections. However, infection numbers are highly dependent on the testing capacity of each country, while seriously ill people tend to enter hospitals whether or not they have been tested for the virus.
The current wave of infections in Europe is partly due to the relative normality this summer. Unlike the US, where the epidemic climbed to a second peak in July and a third peak this month, travelers moved across Europe, students returned to campus, and many large gatherings resumed as the virus continued to spread.
Now hospitals are scrambling to prepare for an onslaught of Covid-19 patients at a time when the bed and ICU capacity will be already under pressure during the winter flu season.
Europe’s second wave
Hospitalization of Covid-19 patients per 100,000 people
In Poland, the government converted the country’s largest stadium into a temporary field hospital with space for 500 patients. Hospitals in France, particularly in the Paris area, have begun postponing non-emergency surgeries while other workers have called back on vacation. More than a fifth of Spanish intensive care beds are occupied by Covid-19 patients, and in Madrid that number is closer to 40 percent.
And in the Czech Republic – where the current hospitalization rate exceeds the worst in the UK – doctors are concerned about staff shortages. “In some regions, around 10 percent of the medical staff is either already infected or in quarantine,” said Petr Smejkal, head of infectious diseases and epidemiology at the Institute for Clinical and Experimental Medicine in Prague.
Mr Smejkal said the country also lacks skilled workers such as respiratory therapists and that most nurses are not trained to operate ventilators. “I am very concerned about the staff and the safe relationship between doctors and patients and nurses with patients,” he added.
It is hoped that no place will experience the level of death that Bergamo, Italy, New York City and Madrid suffered this spring. The spread of the virus is now better known, and treatments have improved so that sick people have a better chance of survival. The tests have been rolled out across Europe so that countries can identify outbreaks earlier if they are easier to contain.
However, it is unclear how successful these control measures will be, or whether political opposition and collective exhaustion via new restrictions will make it more difficult to get the virus under control a second time.
Deaths in most of Europe remain at a fraction of the spring levels. But they have been slowly ticking up in the past few weeks and they tend to delay hospital stays by about a month. Experts say an additional increase in deaths is likely over the next few weeks.
Covid-19 deaths are slowly increasing again
Deaths per million people in the past 14 days
Albania
March 1Oct. 21 Last two weeks
Source: The New York Times. Shows countries with at least 1 million people.
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