As Omicron spreads, Europe scrambles to shore up healthcare

Troops have been deployed to London hospitals. Healthcare workers infected with Covid-19 are treating patients in France. The Netherlands is under a lockdown, and tented field hospitals have gone up in Sicily.

Nations across Europe are scrambling to prop up health systems strained by staff shortages blamed on the new, highly transmissible Omicron variant of the coronavirus, which is sending a wave of infections crashing over the continent.

“Omicron means more patients to treat and fewer staff to treat them,” Stephen Powis, national medical director at Britain’s National Health Service, said on Friday.

The World Health Organisation said on Thursday that a record 9.5 million Covid-19 cases were tallied globally over the last week, a 71 per cent increase from the previous seven-day period. However, the number of weekly recorded deaths declined.

While Omicron seems less severe than the Delta variant it has swiftly replaced, especially among people who have been vaccinated, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus cautioned against treating it lightly.

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“Just like previous variants, Omicron is hospitalising people, and it’s killing people,” he said. “In fact, the tsunami of cases is so huge and quick that it is overwhelming health systems around the world.”

That was evident on Friday in London, where some 200 military personnel, including 40 medics, were being deployed to hospitals struggling to deliver vital care amid “exceptional” staff shortages blamed on the number of workers who are ill or isolating because of Covid-19. Next week, another 150 troops will help an ambulance service in northwest England.

A total of 39,142 NHS staff members at hospital trusts in England were absent for Covid-19 reasons on January 2, up 59 per cent from the previous week, according to figures released by the National Health Service in England.

The UK also has changed its coronavirus testing rules to reduce the amount of time people who test positive have to isolate.

Germany’s leaders were set to consider possible new restrictions and changes to quarantine rules on Friday.

French authorities this week began allowing healthcare workers who are infected with the coronavirus but have few or no symptoms to keep treating patients rather than self-isolate.

France announced a staggering 332,252 daily virus cases on Wednesday, Europe’s highest-ever single-day confirmed infection count.

The Netherlands has been in a strict lockdown for weeks, a move designed to ease pressure on overburdened hospitals and buy time for a slow-starting vaccination booster campaign to gather pace. Despite the lockdown, infections hit record numbers in the country this week.

In Palermo, Sicily, auxiliary facilities were set up in front of three hospitals to relieve the pressure on emergency rooms and to allow ambulance crews to get patients into beds instead of waiting in the parking lot.

Staff in white medical overalls and masks pushed gurneys from ambulances into the tents.

“The virus adapts to the environment, we have to make the habitat impossible for it, and to do that you absolutely have to vaccinate,” he said. “Don’t be afraid to vaccinate, you must be afraid of Covid.”