Covid pushes EU annual deaths to a record level

A healthcare worker waves to invite next in line to get a dose of Russia’s Sputnik V or Sputnik Lite Covid-19 vaccine, at a vaccination centre at the Olympic Luzhniki football stadium in Moscow.

• Russia records around 428,000 excess deaths during pandemic: Reuters analysis • Austria urges public to get Covid-19 shots as supply exceeds demand • Malta closes borders to unvaccinated travellers • Spanish tourist hotspots seek return to curfews as youth infections rage Last year European Union member states recorded their highest level of annual deaths since the bloc started keeping records, official data showed yesterday, reflecting the impact of the coronavirus (Covid-19) epidemic. The EU population fell from 447.3mn to 447.0mn last year, as the annual toll rose 11% over 2019’s deaths to 5.2mn, the most deaths since 1961 when Brussels starting compiling the data. The birth rate also fell again. Deaths have exceeded births in the now 27-nation union since 2012, but immigration had seen the population grow by 4% between 2001 and 2019. Giampaolo Lanzieri, an expert at statistics authority Eurostat, said that several factors contributed to the drop in population. “For sure there has been the impact on mortality. We have observed an increase of over half a million of deaths as what was observed on average in the previous years,” he said. “But (...) there is a likely impact on fertility as well, on the number of births,” Lanzieri told reporters. “And of course, there has been also an impact on migration because the borders have been closed.” Nevertheless, the “most prominent” cause of population loss was the impact of the epidemic. The steepest decline in population was recorded in Italy, which lost 384,000 people or 0.6% of its population, followed by Romania and Poland. Nine of the member states recorded falls in population, with 18 more seeing the more usual increase, including France, where births outstripped deaths and the number of people grew by 0.2%. Russia meanwhile recorded around 428,000 excess deaths from April 2020 to May this year during the coronavirus pandemic, according to Reuters calculations based on data released by the state statistics service yesterday. Some epidemiologists say excess deaths are the best way to measure the real death toll from Covid-19. Russia’s coronavirus task force has confirmed a toll of 141,501 since the pandemic began. Excess deaths are typically defined as the difference between the observed numbers of deaths in specific time periods and expected numbers of deaths in the same time periods. Reuters based its calculations on a comparison with the annual average of deaths in 2015-19 calculated on a monthly basis. Rosstat, the statistics agency, keeps a separate count from the task force and says that it recorded around 290,000 deaths related to Covid-19 between last April and May this year. Data showed that 18,695 people had died from Covid-19 or related causes in May. Russia is currently experiencing a surge in coronavirus cases. Authorities blame the more contagious Delta variant of the virus and the population’s reluctance to get vaccinated despite shots being widely available. The coronavirus task force reported 25,766 new Covid-19 cases yesterday, the most confirmed in a single day since January 2. Russia has recorded more than 5.7mn cases nationwide since the start of the pandemic. Austria’s government has appealed to the public to get fully vaccinated against the coronavirus as the number of doses available now outstrips the number of people who want one. Like many countries in Europe, Austria is in what experts have described as a race against time to vaccinate as much of its population as possible before the Delta variant causes a fresh increase in infection numbers. “Our great plea: take up the vaccination offer, there are enough vaccine doses,” conservative Chancellor Sebastian Kurz told a news conference, adding that another wave of infections is coming later this summer or in the autumn. “The decision that every person must take for themselves is vaccination or infection. Either you get vaccinated or you are constantly at risk of infection, which will become reality at some point,” he added. The Alpine tourism hotspot is slightly above the average vaccination rate among European Union and European Economic Area countries, with 45.7% of adults fully inoculated, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. The number of cases per 100,000 people in the past week remains very low at 8.4. However, after the latest loosening of restrictions this month, daily infections have been rising as the Delta variant spreads. Malta said yesterday that it would be the first European country to close its borders to anyone who has not been fully vaccinated against coronavirus, following a spike in Covid-19 cases. Only those in possession of a British or European vaccination certificate will be allowed in from July 14, health minister Chris Fearne said – suggesting that US tourists and others will be barred. “We will be the first country in Europe to take this step,” he told a news conference. Malta has been hailed as a European success story for its vaccination campaign, with 79% of the adult population currently fully vaccinated. However, from reporting no new cases and having just 28 active cases on June 27, the Mediterranean island nation reported 96 new virus infections yesterday, taking the total number of active cases up to 252. “From Wednesday July 14, anyone coming to Malta must be in possession of a recognised vaccination certificate: a Maltese certificate, a British certificate, or a European Union certificate,” Fearne told reporters. Spain’s Canary Islands and its Mediterranean region of Valencia have asked the government to bring back curfews to counter a soaring Covid-19 infection rate among unvaccinated youngsters that is threatening to scupper the vital summer tourism season. Nationwide, cases had been dwindling over recent months but began to surge from the middle of June, propelled by the Delta variant and more socialising among younger groups. Concerned by the surge, Germany designated Spain a high-risk area yesterday, obliging returning travellers to take a test to avoid quarantine and potentially cutting off an important source of high-spending sunseekers. France had already warned its citizens from visiting, though Spanish Tourism Minister Reyes Maroto defended Spain as safe. Since a state of emergency expired in May, regional authorities have been responsible for the Covid-19 response but need court authorisation or a government decree for strict measures like lockdowns, travel bans and curfews. The Canaries’ regional government said late on Thursday that it would ask its Supreme Court to authorise a 12.30am to 6am curfew on Tenerife, which has the islands’ highest coronavirus incidence. Valencia, home to the popular resort of Benidorm, and the central region of Castilla and Leon, had already asked the central government for curfews but Health Minister Carolina Darias said on Wednesday that they were “not on the table”.