Romanian hospitals are seeing bodies pile up in the wake of Europe’s winter Covid crisis.
Bucharest’s main hospital morgue has almost tripled its capacity, according to new reports. Nurses revealed that many families have been taken to their graves as a result of rising deaths and cases.
Although the situation has improved since Romania, which boasts one of Europe’s lowest vaccination rates (38%) went into partial shut down in October, morgues continue to work overtime to get rid of any remaining backlog.
Germany’s hardest-hit south has been suffering from worsening epidemics due to the actions of liberal German schools.
This is the result of an epidemic of Covid in a Steiner School. The attendants follow Rudolf Steiner’s ‘anthroposophical” teachings, including the idea that children must be taught how to paint before learning to speak and should allow them to do so at their own pace.
Today, there are other places in Europe…
- Angela Merkel’s husband Joachim Sauer, in a rare public statement, blasted ‘lazy’ and ‘indolent’ Germans for refusing to get vaccinated
- Jean Castex (French Prime Minister) has taken a positive test for Covid. If he has any symptoms, it is unknown.
- Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo, who met with Castex in Brussels this week, is also self-isolating pending the result of a Covid test
- Today, European diplomats met at Brussels to discuss curbs to non-essential travel among countries in order to counter the bloc’s winter wave.
- A doctor in Ireland warned that the Covid cases are “frightening” and the pressure on the healthcare system is “as severe as I have ever seen.”
The bodies of Covid victims are filling up the Romanian morgues. This is after Covid, which has the lowest rates of vaccination in Europe, was recently hit.
After it was put into partial shut down and implemented vaccine passports to combat Covid deaths and infections, Romania is now experiencing a decline in Covid cases and death rates (file image).
Tobias Rapp, a writer for Der Spiegel who once attended a Steiner school, said the schools are their attendants are not outwardly anti-vaccine.
He said that Steiner-believers see vaccines invading the body’s natural connection to nature. Therefore, they will avoid medical treatment in favor of alternative remedies.
Steiner schools – which also exist in the UK and charge up to £10,000-per-year for a place – have in the past been at the centre of measles outbreaks.
After a Covid outbreak at one school in the city of Freiburg in October, inspectors found 55 teachers and students were carrying certificates claiming they were exempt from wearing masks – only three of which were found to be valid.
CNN correspondents visited the Budapest University Hospital’s morgue this week, and saw corridors littered with covid bodies.
There is a maximum capacity of 15 bodies in the morgue, but 41 people arrived the day reporter attended. The hospital also had almost all the beds available on its expanded Covid Ward.
Claudiu, Claudiu Ionita was a nurse and spoke out to say that he never imagined such a disaster could occur, or that whole families would be sent to their graves.
As leaders attempt to control the winter crisis, Covid cases are rising across Europe. They shut down their economies and introduce mandatory vaccines.
In Europe, there are more Covid intensive-care inpatients than ever before. This is a trend that has been evident since the beginning of this year. The UK is seeing a steady increase in the number of intensive-care patients.
While deaths from Covid remain well below the levels seen during Europe’s second and first waves of infection, they are beginning to increase rapidly in low-infection countries.
Romania’s low vaccine rate of 37% made it one of the first EU members to experience a Covid outbreak in winter.
At 25%, only one country has a lower double jabbed rate than Bulgaria, which is 25 percent.
That forced the government to impose a night-time curfew and make Covid health passes mandatory for access to all indoor spaces, with Interior Minister Raed Arafat saying at the time that the country was in a ‘disaster situation’.
We are now in this predicament while receiving the vaccine. The majority of us have refused to be inoculated. The situation could have been prevented,’ he muttered.
Europe currently faces a growing winter wave of viral infections. This has been called a pandemic for the unvaccinated.
Leadership has been considering making jab mandatory, with Austria being the first country to adopt this policy.
Lawyers are currently assisting with the move, and a decision on whether to proceed is expected by February 2019. The country was placed back in full lockdown.
Germany is also considering making jabs mandatory, however Jens Spahn, the health minister in Germany on Tuesday, resisted the idea saying that it was too late to address the current outbreak of infection.
Spahn stated today to reporters, “The effect would not come too soon,” and said that the only way forward was to “reduce contact and act as one state.”
As he was speaking, 70 percent of Germans believed that restrictions on lockdowns would be implemented before Christmas.
Ministers met in Italy while they discussed how to combat the growing disease, and what steps to take to prevent it from worsening. An emergency degree will be issued later in this week.
The UK has outperformed all other continents in its booster program. More than 20% of Brits now have a booster. This is nearly double what was available in Austria.
Europe is witnessing a wave of Covid lockdowns as rising infections are being addressed. Protesters across Europe accuse their governments to be tyrants.
Corriere reported that an idea for a mandatory nationwide vaccination program has been discussed. Carlo Bonomi, head of the Italian federation of industry, and Maurizio Landini, boss of one of the country’s biggest unions, are said to be in favour.
Others are cautioning, saying that only certain professions like teachers or shop workers should have mandates at first. However, a broad mandate can be rolled out in high-infection areas only.
As cases rose, the South Tyrol Region, Italy’s northern border, and Switzerland imposed a night curfew on officials who met to discuss.
Meanwhile in Ireland, where a night-time curfew has also been put into effect, GP Daragh O’Neill told the Irish Times that the situation in the country is ‘frightening’.
High Covid counts in Drogheda (north of Dublin) were attributed to virus restrictions. He said that the pressure placed on GP services has been the greatest for the past 25 years.
‘It’s quite a frightening time to be a GP. This is as bad as I’ve ever seen it,’ he said.
Elsewhere, the European Medicines Agency says it is evaluating whether to authorize booster doses of Johnson & Johnson’s single-shot COVID-19 vaccine.
In a statement Monday, the EU drug regulator said it was considering an application from J&J to recommend booster doses of the J&J vaccine for adults 18 and over, at least two months after they were first immunized.
The children in the German state school are seen after it was made clear that private schools were being targeted for their contribution to the spread of vaccine-sceptic views.
Germany might introduce compulsory vaccines. However, the German health minister has warned today that this will not be enough to counter the current epidemic.
The EMA stated that it expects to take a decision within weeks amid a sudden increase in coronavirus cases across Europe.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration gave the green light to J&J booster doses in October, both for people who initially received the J&J and vaccine and for people who got immunized with other vaccines.
J&J earlier presented results from a large study that found giving a second dose just two months after the first bumped protection against symptomatic COVID-19 to 94% from 70% in U.S. recipients.
The booster was given six months later and resulted in an even larger increase of virus-fighting antibodies.
EU countries initially ordered about 200 million doses of J&J’s vaccine, but only a fraction have been delivered after the company has faced repeated production problems.
The EMA previously stated that its 27 member nations might consider administering booster doses from vaccines manufactured by Pfizer BioNTech and Moderna to patients who received their two-dose regimens less than six months ago. It also noted that additional antibodies would be provided against COVID-19 by a third shot.
It is likely that the agency will decide on COVID-19 vaccines to be available for children between 5 and 11.