Third wave despite vaccination. What’s happening in Ukraine and the world, and what to expect from coronavirus?

More than a year has passed since the start of the lockdown. The two-week quarantine has dragged on and the third wave of coronavirus is near at hand. Europe continues to tighten quarantine, despite starting vaccination, and, according to rumors, they want to introduce a full lockdown again in Ukraine.

Rubryka analyzed what's happening in the world, and when this situation will end. 

The WHO warned back in November last year that the third wave was inevitable in the first months of 2021. Sad predictions came true. At a briefing, the official representative of the European Commission, Dana Spinant, announced that the third wave of coronavirus pandemic had begun in Europe.

The third wave of coronavirus in Europe and Ukraine

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and regional leaders agreed to isolate Germany for Easter to try to defuse the "third wave" of Covid-19 infections caused by the faster spread of mutations, Bloomberg reports. "The number of cases is growing exponentially and beds in intensive care units are taken again," she said, adding that the number of infections must decrease for the vaccination campaign in the country to take effect. Over the past 2 weeks, the incidence rate has doubled there. Therefore, from April 1, all stores will be closed for five days, except for grocery stores, which will open on April 3.

Poland announced a national lockdown on March 20; Bulgaria is planning it, soon to be followed by Hungary, already late with introducing the lockdown and now leading in the number of deaths from the virus. There, doctors have called on the government to impose tougher restrictions to ease unprecedented pressure on hospitals. "The government should immediately close shopping malls, limit the number of shoppers in stores still working, and ban groups of more than three people in public places except for families," the Hungarian Medical Association said in a statement.

Norway is also struggling with the third wave of the epidemic; a new British strain of coronavirus is actively spreading there. The daily increase in cases in March exceeded 1 thousand people for the first time. The epicenter of the disease is in Oslo. Schools, gymnasiums, kindergartens are switching to distance learning again. Serbia is also setting anti-records. It was recently announced that the number of cases exceeded 5 thousand people in one day. Mass events have already been canceled there, public institutions have been closed; only pharmacies and grocery stores are open.

Ireland is also in quarantine. As ua-times reports, today all non-essential businesses are closed there (food venues, beauty salons, fitness clubs, swimming pools, cinemas, entertainment centers, clothing and footwear stores, etc.). It's forbidden to travel further than 5 km from home, except for visiting a doctor, a trip to a store or pharmacy, working or studying. Quarantine measures have been introduced again in Italy and France.

Why is the incidence increasing despite vaccination?

David Nabarro has worked as a crisis manager at the UN and the World Health Organization (WHO) for over two decades. The London-born doctor has led the UN's fight against avian influenza, Ebola, and cholera in Haiti. In 2017, Nabarro lost to the sitting president as a candidate for the Head of WHO. He's currently a WHO's special envoy for the fight against Covid-19.

Earlier, even during the first wave, he stated that the European response to the pandemic was insufficient: the infrastructure necessary after overcoming the first wave wasn't built. At the same time, Nabarro pointed out that there was no alternative strategy for combating coronavirus, other than implementing the strategies described earlier. It includes isolating patients, maintaining social distance, and preserving quarantine restrictions until the incidence becomes steadily low. Many countries didn't follow this advice; lockdowns gradually became softer, public institutions opened. Many argued that keeping people from distancing was becoming an increasingly arduous task.

All hopes were pinned on an early vaccination, but even then everything didn't go according to plan. As we wrote above, world leaders state that vaccination rates are too slow. Some countries, such as Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, Slovenia, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Sweden, refusing to resume vaccination with AstraZeneca due to reports of the blood-clot risk in those vaccinated, also played a large role. These countries are awaiting a final verdict from the European Medicines Agency regarding the AstraZeneca vaccine. Although scientists cited statistics that out of 17 million patients, blood clots were found in only 40 vaccinated, and the WHO stressed that the vaccine's benefits outweighed all the risks, officials issued banning orders.

Herd immunity and decreasing incidence rate growth

Anthony Fauci, a chief infectious disease specialist in the US, said the country could only return to normal life only after 70% to 85% of the US population were vaccinated.

At the current growth rate of 11.3 million people a day, it'll take years to achieve significant levels of global immunity. So, in the United States, 19.4% of the population has already been vaccinated, in Chile — 22.4%, in the UK — 22.7%, another 29.7%, in the Maldives, in the UAE, 34.3%, exactly 47%, on Seychelles, and Israel is still in the lead, where 53.9% of residents have already received the drug. In Ukraine, only 0.1% of citizens received the vaccine.

Health analysts Sarun Charumilind, Matt Craven, Jessica Lamb, Adam Sabow, and Matt Wilson predicted a decline in the epidemic by the third quarter of 2023, but it's only the case in the United States, where vaccination rates are significantly higher than those in Ukraine. Experts say that by this time, herd immunity will be developed, even if not the entire population is vaccinated, reducing the incidence rate.

"A transition toward normalcy will occur when COVID-19 mortality falls and the disease is de-exceptionalized in society. COVID-19 will not disappear during this transition but will become a more normal part of the baseline disease burden in society (like flu, for example), rather than a special threat requiring an exceptional societal response. During this transition, controlling the spread of SARS-CoV-2 will still require public-health measures (such as continued COVID-19 testing and mask use in many settings), but mortality will fall significantly, allowing greater normalization of business and social activities… Herd immunity might not be reached until 2022 or beyond," the prognosis states.

There's also a corresponding prognosis in Ukraine. Infectious disease doctor, epidemiologist, former chairperson of the Center for Public Health Volodymyr Kurpita said last April that the pandemic wouldn't end until 70% of Ukrainians had herd immunity.

What can Ukraine expect in the near future?

This March, Volodymyr Kurpita predicts an incidence burst in April, a calm summer, and new covid outbreaks in the fall. The infectious disease specialist writes about this in his UNIAN column:

"Until we have a large stratum of the immune population — either as a result of vaccination or the transmission of the disease — new epidemic waves await us," the doctor explains. "All the measures we took were in the hope that in three to four weeks, the incidence situation would improve, and then everything would be resolved of its own accord. In fact, everything isn't so: the coronavirus has shown that the situation improves only for a while, and then everything starts again, with greater force. If we start talking about the medium- or long-term plans, we can bring the epidemic under control," Kurpita writes. According to his predictions, Ukraine needs an immediate nationwide quarantine:

"Lockdown will lead to an increasing social tension and economic situation worsening, but it'll be a 'lesser evil' compared to increasing the number of Covid-19 deaths," the expert persuades. 

Kurpita considers the measures being introduced now belated since they're taken not according to trends in incidence, but the fact. It turns out that by the time the lockdown was introduced, hospitals had been already overloaded; there are no beds and too many sick patients.

Despite such recommendations, the Ministry of Health doesn't plan to introduce a nationwide lockdown. The head of the ministry, Maksym Stepanov, confirmed it on March 23, "We're not planning. We'll do it in the regions. Relatively, we've now introduced (the red zone) in Kyiv, Sumy, Odesa regions, and the Ivano-Frankivsk region, I think, will leave red level in a couple of days," he said on the air of the 1+1 TV channel.