The World Health Organisation said last week that Europe was the hot spot of the pandemic right now,the only region in which COVID-19 deaths were rising.

The autumnsurge of infections is overwhelming hospitals in many Central and Eastern European nations,including Ukraine,Russia,Romania,the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Over the past several days,there have been many anti-vaccination marches in European nations as one government after another tightened measures.

Dutch police arrested more than 30 people during unrest in The Hague and other towns in the Netherlands on Saturday,following much worse violence the previous night.

Austria went into a 10-day national lockdown on Monday for everyone after first imposing a lockdown on the unvaccinated. Christmas markets in Vienna were packed Sunday with locals and tourists taking in the holiday sights before shops and food stalls are forced to close.

Not quite 66 per cent of its 8.9 million people are fully vaccinated,and inoculations have plateaued at one of the lowest rates in western Europe.

Austria is among several western European countries where infections are rising rapidly and where there are concerns that vaccination rates are insufficient to hold off a winter surge at hospitals.

Thanks largely to inoculations,hospitals in Austria are not under the same pressure they were earlier in the pandemic,but many are still straining to handle rising numbers of COVID-19 patients while also attempting to clear backlogs with exhausted or sick staff.

Austria’s new lockdown is its fourth since the pandemic began and comes as the country has struggled without success to stop spiralling case numbers. On Friday,it reported 15,809 new infections,an all-time high.

AP

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