Analysis – Saturday, 15 January 2022

First Countries Peaking
But deaths still rise in some countries

Should there not be yet another, more dangerous, SARS-CoV-2 variant looming in some area of the planet, countries with a strong record of full vaccination (3 jabs) could see the beginning of the end of the pandemic as early as April. This would be especially the case with Britain, whose incidence has peaked and whose test-positive rate sank below 10%. Runners-up are Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Sweden and France, whose incidences are about to peak and Germany, which is attempting to slow down virus progression for the sake of a reduced but longer lasting peak. This would then delay the return to low numbers by up to two months.

Spain, however, could be on the verge of squandering its advantage by treating Covid-19 like the flu and giving the virus free reign. Compared to Britain and Denmark, which have booster rates of more than 50%, Spain has only 35% of its population fully protected against severe disease, which would then result in more hospitalisations and deaths.

The USA as a whole is potentially similar to Western Europe as the incidence, averaged across its states, is peaking too, but some regions do not fare so well. This includes former poster child Washington State, where vaccination numbers are even worse than the not stellar US average and where hospitalisations and deaths are on the rise, albeit on a still much lower level than that of the US as a whole.

Tunisia has a lower vaccination rate than Western Europe and all three major indicators are on the rise, albeit at a low level. Other factors, such as the high percentage of under 30 year olds and, possibly, a higher natural immunity to the virus could put it in the same category as Western Europe. And numbers are indeed projected to drop.

Eastern European nations will take longer to get out of the pandemic and a lower vaccination rates will cause greater casualties than in the West.