Covid, what happens in Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Ukraine
The point about the virus in Central-Eastern Europe. The explosion of infections reveals the shortcomings of health systems even in the countries of the recent economic boom. Focus on the Czech Republic and Poland (with info also on Slovakia and Ukraine).
They had brilliantly passed the test of the first wave of Covid-19, last spring, but now they are overwhelmed by the second. They are the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, the young and more fragile democracies straddling the European Union, sometimes at the center of Western media attention for conflicting reasons: the good, sometimes excellent economic performance on the one hand, the wounds to the Rule of law with the politicization of institutions on the other.
Now it is the numbers of the virus that bring these countries back to the fore, in a phase of explosion of infections a little over the whole European continent. From Poland to Ukraine, from the Czech Republic to Slovakia, up to Hungary and Romania, the infection curve grows, pulverizing the praises for the good performance of six months ago and uncovering historical weaknesses in fundamental sectors of society, such as healthcare. And raising the suspicion in the population that it was not good politics in March and April, but luck.
On Thursday 15 October the Czech Republic had registered 9,720 cases in 24 hours (+ 7% compared to the previous day), Poland 8,099 (+ 5.7), Slovakia 1,929 (+ 8.7), Romania 4,013 (+ 2, 4), Ukraine 5,062 (+ 1.8) and Hungary, which for weeks has adopted restrictions on the entry of foreign citizens) 950 (+ 2.3). On the same day, neighboring Germany, the most populous state in central Europe, reported 7,074 cases (+ 2.1). They are absolute numbers, which provide a very partial picture. What unites them, however, is the trend: a sharp increase.
The figures from the Czech Republic are currently the most worrying, because it was one of the first countries to be hit by the second European wave and the pressure on hospitals has been going on for weeks. Prague was among the first capitals to end up in the European risk areas grid of the experts of the German Koch Institut and yesterday the emergency plan for the displacement of some serious patients in clinics in nearby Bavaria, where the structures are still far away from overcrowding.
Berlin has alerted its neighboring regions, east and west, to welcome patients from neighboring states in distress, as already happened during the first wave with the Italian and French patients. In the west Saarland and Rhineland-Palatinate are in contact with French clinics, North Rhine-Westphalia is ready to welcome patients from Belgium and Holland. In the east, in addition to the Bavarian availability with the Czechia, Saxony, Brandenburg and Mecklenburg could support the possible weight of Polish patients. A relief valve, at least as long as Germany can manage its emergency. But even the Germans fear that this time the pressure on their hospitals could push the facilities to the limit of capacity.
Slovakia also suffers, the country that in the first wave had recorded the lowest rate of deaths from Covid in the entire European Union. Faced with the surge in infections, the government decided a few days ago to reintroduce the obligation to wear masks even outdoors in cities and elementary schools, while high school students are now at home and will follow lessons online. It closes swimming pools, gyms and saunas, as well as bars and restaurants, which are only allowed to take away. Partial lockdowns they call, adopted with the hope of averting the total one and above all the collapse of the hospital structure.
In the Czech Republic that limit is close and now the scenic table that was set up at the end of June on the Charles Bridge in Prague to celebrate the end of the pandemic sounds like a joke. Prime Minister Andrej Babis, who only five weeks ago had overturned the restoration of the obligation of masks in closed places wanted by his Minister of Health (later resigned), today speaks of a "catastrophic situation". Almost 10,000 daily cases in a country of 10.7 million inhabitants, 1,100 deaths (there were just 350 in the first wave), a doubling of hospitalized patients in serious condition, difficulties in reconstructing the chains of contagion, collapse of hospitals. If in March the government had taken just 10 days from the announcement of the first coronavirus case to block leisure activities and 16 to quarantine the entire country by closing the borders, with the rapid resumption of infections at the end of August, also due to the infections returning from holidays in beloved Croatia, the reaction was slow: minimization first, then uncertainty, even in the face of resistance from a population fed up with restrictions.
Now the virus is chasing it. Since 21 September, Roman Prymula, epidemiologist, military doctor, the man who as undersecretary had managed the March emergency, has been at the helm of the Ministry of Health. Since the beginning of October, under the umbrella of a state of emergency, rigid measures have been reintroduced that have led to the blocking of social, cultural and sporting life, valid at least until the beginning of November. From this week, bars, pubs and restaurants have been closed, alcoholic beverages banned in squares and parks, remote school restoration and reduced contacts to a maximum of 6 people, both indoors and out. It is hoped that these measures will have an effect on the contagion and hospitalization curves in the coming weeks and avoid a new, painful lockdown in economic activity. In the meantime, efforts are also being made on the hospital front: the government has announced the purchase of 4,000 beds and the transformation of exhibition halls into temporary hospitals. For the time being, patients in need of intensive care can use the facilities in neighboring Bavaria.
The appeal to return to Czech doctors abroad is also dramatic. The National Order of Doctors did so, Minister Prymula joined it.
The shortage of health personnel is also one of the main problems in Poland, which has counted 142,000 cases and over 3,300 deaths since March. Warsaw too had gone through the first wave with agility, then the summer relaxation. Parties, family celebrations, resumption of mobility and a general relaxation of the discipline have given new play to the virus that has started to circulate as it had not done in March. So the hospitals were filled this time, including intensive care starting with those in the capital. And the knots of too neglected health have come to a head.
The Poland of the economic miracle ranks fifth from bottom in the European Union for per capita health expenditure. Worse are only Croatia, Latvia, Bulgaria and Romania. Germany spends three times as much and in fact has 4.7 doctors on average per 1,000 inhabitants, Poland 2.4: and an internist earns 4 times more, according to a comparative table published by Zeit. And indeed Germany is full of Polish doctors, as are Great Britain and many other Western European countries.
The shortage of qualified medical personnel also threatens to nullify the government's attempt to run for cover now, creating extraordinary wards by requisitioning spaces in youth hotels or student homes and training recent medical graduates still lacking full qualification. But learning how to use respirators takes six months of practice, says ICU expert Wojech Serednicki at Zeit, and time is running out now, it had to be done sooner. In the meantime, the cross accusations have started, which only serve to increase the tension. Deputy Prime Minister Jacek Sasin accused the doctors of not doing their duty: we have enough beds and respirators, he said. Pecked the reply from the order of doctors but also to some of his government colleagues the move did not appear happy. And only on Tuesday will Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki inform parliament about the state of the pandemic. In the meantime, the restrictive measures have been tightened: reintroduction of the obligation to wear a mask on the streets, closure of gyms and swimming pools, ban on wedding parties, restrictions on restaurants and bars and return to remote lessons in schools.
Some relief to the Polish hospital sector is given by doctors and nurses who emigrated from Ukraine in recent years. But in the end it is a game of dominoes, which also applies to other sectors of work: to earn more, the Poles go west and the Ukrainians too: to Poland. Thus aggravating the condition at home. In fact, Kiev also suffers from the impact of the second wave, much more than the first and a few days ago the National Security Council announced for the first time since February that the threshold of 100 deaths per day from coronavirus has been exceeded. Thus the pandemic makes clear what the Bulgarian political scientist Ivan Krastev, one of the most acute Eastern European intellectuals, indicates as the greatest economic and social emergency in Central-Eastern Europe: emigration as capitulation.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/covid-che-cosa-succede-in-polonia-repubblica-ceca-slovacchia-e-ucraina/ on Mon, 19 Oct 2020 13:10:10 +0000.