The third wave of coronavirus will strike Europe: the president of the Robert Koch Institute, Professor Lothar Wheeler, said at a press conference of the Association of Foreign Correspondents accredited to the UN Office in Geneva that this could happen in the near future. His words are quoted by RIA Novosti.
According to him, if enough people are not vaccinated, the restrictions will have to be returned in the fall.
The specialist noted that Europe should be wary of the start of the third wave of COVID-19. “I don’t want to comment on other countries, we can all see the numbers. As for Germany, we are starting the third wave. We have clear signals. And it's clear that public health measures, including reducing contacts and wearing masks, are still valid, ”Wheeler said.
He called on other states to continue to comply with restrictive measures to combat the pandemic. Wheeler stressed that Germany must “vaccinate as many people as possible in the shortest possible time”, otherwise there will be too many serious infections in the country that the authorities will not be able to cope with.
Earlier in March, a new threat to Europe was named due to the coronavirus. The Spanish newspaper El Pais reported that the birth rate had dropped sharply in a number of countries. So, in Spain in December 2020 and January 2021, the birth rate fell by 22.6 percent compared to the same period last year. According to the director of the Institute of the National Research Council Diego Ramiro, these data are not enough to make a forecast for the year, but it is already clear that a strong demographic decline is expected.
