‘They are the drivers of this tide’

Over the course of two weeks, new infections fluctuated between 35,000 and 45,000 per day, with a rate of 410 cases per 100,000 residents as of 12 October, much higher than in the rest of Europe and In Belgium it is almost twice that. (244).

Only Romania, Serbia and the Baltic countries are worse off. These infection rates are close to the violent wave of last winter, although the rates of deaths and hospitalizations are much lower. They don’t care much about British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, whose government lifted most of the remaining restrictions in July, when several European countries introduced health authorizations, and are now looking beyond the pandemic.

This particularly high number is explained, according to scientists, by the large number of tests conducted in the United Kingdom (around 900,000 per day) and the fact that young British people, including those over the age of 12, are not vaccinated. could. He has been tested several times a week at the school since September. “It is clear that infection rates among high school children are driving this continuing tide of new infections,” says Professor Simon Clarke from the University of Reading. “A third of the positive people in England are in this age group,” says Kevin McConway of the Open University, a percentage that drops to “half” if “we include children over the age of two.”

The United Kingdom, one of the countries hardest hit by the coronavirus in Europe, which has killed more than 138,000 people, has adopted a very liberal health strategy, increasing the number of large indoor events without a vaccine passport and Compulsory use is abolished in July. . Mask in England. Faced with this dismissal, many academics are asking the government to revise their version, especially as winter approaches, a stressful period for hospitals.

“We are obviously following the latest figures closely and have always known that the next few months can be difficult,” a government spokesman said on Monday. However, he was confident that the current approach “remains correct”: “The vaccination program will remain our first line of defense.”