Covid-19 Battle to Intensify as Winter Sets In

Health authorities in North America and Europe are bracing for another intensive phase in the battle against Covid-19 as winter begins.

Respiratory viruses tend to spread more easily during the cold winter months, which in a typical year bring coughs and sneezes to the schoolyard and pneumonia and death to the most vulnerable elderly people. The risk for the U.S. and Europe this year is that Covid-19 cases multiply at the same time as other winter illnesses, overwhelming hospitals with sick patients.

Public-health and infectious-disease experts say the risk of such a storm means governments need to prepare now for a difficult winter. That means working hard to reverse a resurgent pandemic before the colder months arrive.

The U.S. recorded 50,700 new cases a day on average over the past seven days, equivalent to 154 cases for every one million residents, while together the 27 countries of the European Union and the U.K. recorded 81,600 a day on average, about 159 for every one million people. The number of people hospitalized with severe cases of Covid-19 has been rising, though it remains a fraction of that recorded during the pandemic’s spring peak.

“It would be really good going into winter to have the number of cases of coronavirus as low as we can, so that we’ve got leeway and breathing space,” said Jimmy Whitworth, professor of international public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.