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Unfortunately, Europe’s response to the pandemic this year has not been good. A combination of poor decisions regarding vaccine approval and purchasing combined with a lackluster approach to lockdown has led to pandemic lasting longer than expected and causing considerably more deaths than expected.
On Thursday, France became the latest country to record more than 100,000 deaths due to Covid-19. This was following 300 fatalities being recorded over the last 24 hours. France now has the eighth highest total number of coronavirus deaths in the world and the third in Europe.
President Emmanuel Macron had refused to lock down the country for a third time in January, ignoring calls from both the medical community and the government’s own scientific advisory committee advising him to do so. President Macron, insisted that a country-wide lockdown would be the last resort given the human and financial cost for the economy.
However, deaths continued to climb as the virus continued to spread and this eventually prompted the French President to impose additional restrictions that were comparable to a full scale lockdown. President Macron faces a re-election battle in 12 months time and the speed with which he can get the pandemic under control and reopen the economy could play a critical role in shaping his political future.
The UK was the first European country to cross the 100,000 fatality mark at the end of January. PM Johnson said he was deeply sorry for every life lost and that the government had done everything it could. This was followed by Italy, which passed the threshold in early March.
Just like other countries France had been counting on vaccines to help bring the outbreak under control but the rollout has been terrible and severely affected by delays. Over the last few weeks we have seen more vaccines being deployed but it feels like too little too late in the face on the third wave.
April 14th: 15.75 million vaccine doses had been administered.
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