Analysis – Saturday, 19 June 2021

Fifteen months of fiddling around

We should be thankful for the speediest vaccination campaign the world has ever seen because most governments proved to be utterly incapable of a wise, decisive and sustainable response.

In the summer of last year, Europeans have seen a huge drop in numbers followed by a rebound in autumn. Has anybody asked what had caused that upswing? Maybe we know already that just like on a beach, a new wave will become stronger the longer the water has retreated. We have apparently learnt very little from last year. In fact, France and Germany are reopening at a time when death numbers are considerably higher than last year around the same time. If we take these numbers and add to them the fact that more than half of the at-risk population has been vaccinated, plus the looming delta variant, plus people starting to move around again, it is almost certain that the current downward trend will be broken, maybe as soon as a month from now. 
Britain's low death numbers demonstrate very nicely that vaccination can have an effect, but France and Germany are just not there yet.

The USA and WA have never had a pronounced summer dip in their numbers and death numbers are likely to remain relatively high for several months to come. 

Tunisia's incidence is projected to have peaked (by IMHE estimate), with death numbers following in early to mid July. These "actual" numbers are considerably higher than the ones reported and should be reason for concern. But the forecast looks positive.