Via Nature: Europe’s COVID death toll could rise by hundreds of thousands. Excerpt:
The COVID-19 pandemic could cost an extra 300,000 lives in Europe, according to a study of the number of people in 19 countries who have been neither infected nor vaccinated.
The study’s models also predict that the pandemic could lead to roughly one million hospitalizations in Europe, some of which would contribute to the projected death toll. But the authors of the analysis point out that their estimates are maximum numbers, which assume that all anti-infection restrictions are lifted and contacts between individuals have returned to their pre-pandemic levels. The analysis was posted as a preprint on the medRxiv server and has not yet been peer reviewed.
The findings suggest that the pandemic’s impending toll could be quite severe in Europe, and probably elsewhere, says Henrik Salje, an infectious-disease epidemiologist at the University of Cambridge, UK, who was not involved with the study. But the figures should be interpreted with caution, he says, because the analysis assumes that everyone in the population will become exposed — “an extreme worst-case scenario.”
Nevertheless, the study is a useful exercise in helping countries to prepare for the challenges ahead, says Sheryl Chang, an infectious-disease modeller at the University of Sydney in Australia. “The numbers are shocking, and they may or may not happen, but people need to be aware that COVID-19 isn’t over.”
