COVID-19 Is Getting Crazier, Death Rate In Eastern Europe Reaches One Million People

Illustration of COVID-19 funeral in Ukraine. (Wikimedia Commons/Mstyslav Chernov)

JAKARTA - Deaths from the coronavirus in Eastern Europe reached one million on Thursday, according to a tally, as the Omicron variant threatened to destroy the region.

Three of the five countries reporting the highest daily death tolls in Europe were from the East: Russia, Poland, and Ukraine, according to Reuters data as of Thursday.

"I'm scared because this is a very large daily death toll – very large, unimaginable," said Bozena Adamowicz, a pensioner from Warsaw, Poland citing Reuters December 31.

Eastern Europe makes up 39 percent of the region's population and has reported more than half of Europe's total COVID-related deaths, according to a tally. The death toll in Eastern Europe stood at 1.045.454 as of Thursday, compared with 1.873.253 across Europe.

Meanwhile, this Eastern region includes Belarus, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, and Ukraine.

Relatively few Omicron cases have been detected in Eastern Europe, in contrast to Western Europe where daily cases broke records.

Poland reported 794 COVID-related deaths on Wednesday. It was a record high for the fourth wave of the pandemic, although the figure may have increased due to delayed reporting due to Christmas.

Dr. Michal Sutkowski, a spokesman for the College of Family Physicians in Poland, blamed the rising toll in Poland on an overloaded health care system, lack of knowledge, and relative reluctance to get vaccinated compared to the West, including for the most vulnerable groups.

"Unfortunately, the Omicron is approaching. It will come sooner or later and then the death toll may increase dramatically, because, unfortunately, there will be a scale effect," he said, adding he had noticed a growing interest in vaccination in recent weeks.

As previously reported, Russia has surpassed Brazil to have the world's second-highest death toll from the COVID-19 pandemic, behind the United States, data from Russia's state statistics service and Reuters tally showed on Thursday.

Statistics service Rosstat said 87.527 people had died from coronavirus-related causes in November, making it Russia's deadliest month since the start of the pandemic.

Russia alone has vaccinated nearly 55 percent of its population with at least one injection, according to Health Minister Mikhail Murashko.

Meanwhile, Anna Popova, head of Russia's state consumer watchdog, voiced concern over the potential impact of the 10-day New Year's holiday.

"Considering the upcoming New Year's holidays, when the number of contacts between people has increased, the risk of spreading new Omicron strains will certainly increase," he explained last week.

To note, the Czech Republic and Hungary are at the peak of vaccination rates in the Eastern Europe region, with nearly 64 percent of the total population of both countries having received at least one injection. In contrast, Ukraine had the lowest rates with only about 33 percent of the population receiving a single dose, according to Our World in Data.