Deaths Due To The New COVID-19 Variant In Europe Reach 500 Thousand, The Worst In The World

Ilustrasi photo (Isaac Quesada / Unsplash)

JAKARTA - Europe is the first region in the world to pass 500 thousand deaths due to the new COVID-19 variant that was first discovered in the UK. Worst thing in the world so far. This threatens to take precautionary measures in the region to curb a bigger pandemic.

Quoting Reuters, Wednesday, December 23, reports of a mutated corona virus in the UK triggered a lockdown that was carried out ahead of Christmas celebrations. It has also forced dozens of countries to close borders to the arrival of British citizens this week.

Italy, the country with the highest death toll from COVID-19 in Europe, had detected a patient infected with a new variant of COVID-19, such as in Denmark and France. The health agency in the UK, the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (Nervtag) is the one who is aware of a new variant of the corona virus.

The Nervtag has "moderate confidence" that the new variant is substantially easier to transmit. The data he looked at included genome analysis showing that this particular lineage grew about 70 percent faster.

In addition, a correlation was found between a higher R value and detection of new variants in the test sample. Please note, the value of R is the number of people who infect each person.

So the higher the value, the wider it is spread. Nervtag also noted the variants grew exponentially over the period the national lockdown action was put in place.

There may still be other explanations for this rapid spread. But the idea that this variant is easier to transmit makes sense and seems increasingly likely.

The laboratory studies that are being carried out will answer this with certainty. To suppress the spread of the new variant of the corona virus, European countries are considering screening flight passengers from the UK.

These countries also require quarantine for travelers on arrival. The death toll from COVID-19 in Europe has increased in recent months.

Since the first COVID-19 deaths were reported in France in February, for the next eight months Europe has had 250,000 deaths from COVID-19. It only took 60 days for the region to go from 250 thousand to 500 thousand deaths.

France, Spain, Italy, Great Britain and Russia have reported hundreds of deaths every day. These five countries account for nearly 60 percent of the total deaths from COVID-19 in the European region. Globally, there were 77.52 million cases and 1.71 million deaths.

The first country to use the vaccine

In early December, Britain became the first country to approve the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine, followed by the United States (US), the European Union and other countries. About 800,000 doses of Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine have been secured by the UK government for administration in the coming weeks.

Another problem at hand is the storage of Pfizer / BioNTech vaccines. The vaccine must be stored in an ultra-cold refrigerator.

This has resulted in many vaccines not being able to be brought to the nursing home to vaccinate the population or sent to the doctor's clinic for community vaccination. These factors illustrate why the UK is still pinning its hopes on a second vaccine being developed by the University of Oxford.

The University of Oxford's vaccines are known to be refrigerated and easier to distribute. What's more, the vaccine is originally made in England where the supply will continue to grow and be ready for use.