LONDON (AP) — Despite growing vaccine access, January is looking grim around the globe as the virus resurges and reshapes itself from Britain to Japan to California, filling hospitals and threatening livelihoods anew as governments lock down businesses and race to find solutions.
Mexico City’s hospitals hold more virus patients than they ever have. Germany reported one of its highest daily death tolls to date today, and South African undertakers are struggling to keep up with virus mortalities. Even pandemic success story Thailand is fighting an unexpected wave of infections.
And as doctors face or brace for rising numbers of COVID-19 patients after end-of-year holiday gatherings, more and more countries are reporting cases of a new, more contagious virus variant that has already swept across Britain.
January is going to be “a tough one,” Dr. Margaret Harris, a spokeswoman for the World Health Organization, told The Associated Press. “This idea that seems to be ‘Ah, we’re all sick of it. We want to look at something else. Oh, this doesn’t apply to me’ …. That’s got to go away. It really is all hands on deck.”
While Britain rolled out a second vaccine this week and some U.S. states are starting to give booster shots from the country’s first vaccine, access to inoculations globally is sharply unequal. The supply also isn’t remotely close to meeting the massive demand needed to fight a microscopic foe that has already killed over 1.85 million people.
England is facing a third national lockdown that will last at least six weeks, as authorities struggle to stem a surge in COVID-19 infections that is threatening to overwhelm its hospitals.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced a tough new stay-at-home order for England that takes effect at midnight Tuesday and includes shutting schools, restaurants and all nonessential shops, and won’t be reviewed until at least mid-February. Scottish leader Nicola Sturgeon imposed a lockdown that began Tuesday.
The two leaders said the restrictions were needed to protect the National Health Service amid the emergence of new, more contagious virus variant that has sent daily infections, hospitalizations and deaths soaring.
The NHS “is going through probably the toughest time in living memory,” said Siva Anandaciva, chief analyst of the King’s Fund think-tank. He said some U.K. emergency rooms have waiting times of 12 hours and doctors were treating people lined up in ambulances outside.
Elsewhere in Europe, Italy extended its Christmas lockdown, Spain is restricting travel and Germany’s chancellor was meeting Tuesday with state governors to decide how long to extend the latest lockdown. Cyprus and France are likely to announce tougher measures Thursday, and Ukraine is closing schools and restaurants starting Friday.
In Latin America, some warn the worse is yet to come.
Mexico’s capital has more virus patients than at any point in the pandemic and is flying in doctors from less hard-hit states. Its beach resorts are readying for more cases after thousands of U.S. and European tourists visited over the holidays.
“Probably in the third week of January, we are going to see the system stressed more, that there will be more ambulatory cases and cases requiring hospitalization,” said Dr. Mauricio Rodriguez of Mexico’s National Autonomous University. He blamed the rise on fatigue with social distancing, mixed messages from public figures and Mexicans lowering their guard during the holidays.
Beach parties were blamed for surging cases in Argentina, notably among young people, and the government is considering new restrictions.
In South Africa, the continent’s hardest-hit nation, authorities re-imposed a curfew, banned liquor sales and closed most beaches. Zimbabwe reintroduced a curfew, banned public gatherings, and indefinitely suspended the opening of schools.
South Africa’s undertakers are struggling to cope with the rise in deaths, National Funeral Practitioners Association of SA President Muzi Hlengwa told state broadcaster SABC.
