The UK has become the first country in Europe to register 50,000 deaths from CoVid-19. It is a grim milestone that takes it many thousands of deaths above the country with the next highest level of deaths, Italy, which was also the first country seriously affected by the outbreak. Per capita, the UK is the third most affected country in Europe in terms of deaths, beaten only by Spain and Belgium. Almost 1 in every 1,000 people in the UK have died of CoVid-19, thought to be around 1% of those infected.
The UK is now registering well over 20,000 new cases every single day and in some days registering over 500 new Covid19 deaths. The rising tide has been somewhat flattened by a new national lockdown in England, which has seen the closure of all non-essential shops, hospitality venues and many workplaces. The other nations of the UK, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland also have their own lockdown set-ups in place.
Across Europe, most national governments have now put in place measures to halt the 'second-wave' of CoVid-19 infections. Full scale national lockdowns have been put in place in France, Austria and Germany. Portugal, which is facing a second-wave much worse than its first, which has brought in one of the strongest lockdowns, and curfews have been put in place in Greece that stop people leaving their homes between 9pm and 5am.
Sweden, which was an outlier compared to all other European countries, in that it did not impose a full national lockdown even in the first-wave has now imposed tighter restrictions as it faces a large upsurge in cases. Sweden has the 6th highest death rate of all countries in Europe, and a death rate thirty times higher than its neighbour Norway, and almost five times higher than Denmark.
The British government has urged optimism over the fact that two new vaccines are now available and appear to be highly affected, one created by Pfizer and one created by Moderna. While the UK has bought 30 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine, it has no orders yet in place for the Moderna vaccine, which is likely to be highly sought after by all nations.
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said of the grim death toll:
"Every death is a tragedy. [But] I do think we have got now to a different phase in the way that we treat it."
Dr. Chaand Nagpaul, a council chair with the British Medical Association, blasted Mr. Johnson and his government's handling of the pandemic, saying:
"This is a point that should never have been reached. Today's figure is a terrible indictment of poor preparation, poor organisation by the government, insufficient infection control measures, coupled with late and often confusing messaging for the public."
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