More than 820,000 people have died from the virus in all European countries since the outbreak of the corona • In the shadow of health systems on the verge of collapse and clerical failure of a faltering vaccination campaign, the continent now fears the erupting terror of the mutant wave,
A year after the corona plague began raging in Europe and before the "old continent" was able to recover from the second, more deadly wave of the plague, there were growing signs that Europe was already dealing with the third wave, the "mutation wave", which is expected to be more severe.
Photo: Reuters
More than 820,000 men and women have died in the past year from the corona virus or its effects on other diseases across the continent.
It was too early to assess the economic, social and political consequences of this epidemic, but the damage to the lives of tens of millions was extremely severe: national or regional closures, full or partial, caused enormous damage to almost all sectors of the economy, hundreds of thousands of businesses - large and small - closed, and unemployment figures Soaring.
National health systems in rich and poor countries were on the verge of collapse.
The EU has once again exposed the chronic inefficiency of its large-scale crisis management mechanism.
Apparently, the EU countries are getting vaccinated slowly which annoys the Europeans.
Just this week, Austrian Chancellor Kurtz and the Prime Minister of Denmark announced their intention to cooperate with Israel in order to promote the development of vaccines in their country and separately from the European Union.
The third wave is now focusing mainly on Central European countries - the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Austria, although it seems to have spread to Germany, France, Italy and Greece, where there has been a renewed rise in new infection rates in recent days.
The Czech Republic is once again warning that its health services are in critical condition, and it will probably need emergency assistance from other European countries.
Hungary, which was the first EU country to vaccinate its citizens - the Russian vaccine Sputnik - began distributing vaccines made in China last week, after 5 million such vaccines were imported.
While corona mutations are spreading rapidly in Central Europe, other countries - Portugal, Spain, Poland and the UK - there has been a decline or stabilization in infection data in recent days.
Germany: "Exhausted"
Chancellor Angela Merkel did not choose the warning words she uttered a few days ago: "With these mutations we are entering a new phase of the epidemic, from which a third wave can develop."
Germany, which was considered the first wave of the epidemic to be a model country under the successful management of the epidemic, today stands helpless and battered in the face of the epidemic's persistence and the slowness of the population's vaccination against it.
The "exhausted country," in its latest issue of the weekly Der Spiegel, summed up Germany's condition, under a bruised, wounded German eagle whose feathers were falling off.
64% of Germans today say they feel distressed because of their personal situation in the face of the consequences of the plague.
In September, six months ago, only 33% of Germans felt such distress.
At the end of the first wave, there were about 7,000 corona victims in Germany.
Today their number has increased tenfold, to more than 70,000.
Although the economic crisis is smaller than the one created after the global financial crisis of 2008, it affected a large number of Germans.
The government in Berlin and the provincial governments are seeking to gradually reduce the rather extensive closure imposed on the population for the second time last November.
But the public-political pressure to speed up the return to routine is growing, especially in light of the fact that Germany is in an important election year.
UK: Wrong bet
The chaotic management of the corona crisis in the United Kingdom, which reminded many of the confused and inconsistent management of the Brexit, had dire consequences.
The number of corona in Britain is currently the highest in all of Europe: about 123,000 men and women.
The exit from the EU did allow Britain to be the first country in Western Europe to launch a mass vaccination campaign for its population.
But that achievement failed to overshadow the many failures of the Johnson administration, which initially gambled on a "herd vaccine" and quickly found itself in the midst of an out-of-control epidemic.
The corona has hit the British economy hard, which is also facing the consequences of the Brexit.
A year of fairly extensive closures and border closures has led to a sharp rise in unemployment, which is currently the highest in the last five years.
In the face of a tired and frustrated population, Johnson promised to remove all restrictions by June 21, if control of the spread of the epidemic through vaccines was allowed.
Some of the restrictions will be gradually lifted in the coming weeks: schools will open, more people will be able to hold private meetings and sports activities in clubs will return to normal.
Italy: In "Emergency Order"
Health authorities in Italy announced last Friday that infection rates in Corona continue to rise for the fourth week in a row, and the number of provincial states where the percentage of hospitalized in intensive care has already reached the critical level continues to grow.
At the same time, the average age of those infected with the virus and its mutations dropped to 44.
Virologist Massimo Gatti told the daily Il Masjero: "The increase in infection is mainly due to the British mutation.
All data point to an increase in new cases of infection. '
Italy, the country that became a symbol of the helplessness of government systems and the collapse of health systems in the face of the rapid spread of the epidemic a year ago, has lost close to 100,000 men and women from the virus and ranks second in Corona's European death table.
Italy was the first country in the world to declare a general closure a year ago, and now - at the end of a year, large areas of its territory are once again moving from "yellow" (limited spread of the virus) to "orange" (accelerated spread of the virus).
Only the island of Sardinia has managed to reduce the infection data, and is returning, for the time being, to a normal life routine.
Despite the sharp corona crisis, Italy also went through a political crisis, which ended in the formation of a new government led by Mario Draghi, the economist who headed the European Central Bank.
The new government, which is a kind of national unity government, will issue its first "emergency order" this weekend to deal with the corona plague, which is unlikely to include significant relief.
The new health minister, Roberto Speranza, has declared in the Senate in Rome that great care is still needed and that the conditions are not ripe at the moment for the removal of the blocking restrictions.
France: In a crisis of confidence
The corona crisis has led to the blossoming of conspiracy theories across Europe.
According to a large-scale poll conducted by the Center for Political Research at the Paris Institute of Political Science, the French are the most believers in such conspiracy ideas - compared to the Germans, Italians and British.
42% of French people, according to the poll, believe that their government is taking advantage of the crisis to increase control over its citizens (compared to 41% in the UK, 40% in Italy and 39% in Germany).
36% of French people believe that their government cooperates with pharmaceutical and vaccine companies to hide the side effects of vaccines (compared to 32% in Italy and Germany and 31% in the UK).
41% of respondents in France defined themselves as "exhausted" from the general situation, compared with 28% "only" a year ago.
The French have good reason to feel exhausted: some 87,000 coronations, a general closure, a night curfew and a growing economic crisis, which began even before the advent of the corona - the worst economic crisis since World War II.
The renewed rise in infection rates in recent days has heightened fears of lengthening the restrictions imposed on the population.
Germany has already announced increased control of crossings at its borders with France.
The French government has announced a € 100 billion financial support program for the current year.
A quarter of that amount has already been distributed in January, so an additional assistance plan will be needed soon.
But, the French public coffers also have a bottom.
Sweden: A failed model
The most devastating failure to deal with the corona plague was recorded in Sweden, which boasted a "Swedish model" of granting citizens the freedom to decide whether they wanted to restrict themselves to prevent the spread of the virus and how.
This model somehow withstood the first wave of the plague, but collapsed completely afterwards, in a way that led even the King of Sweden to publicly admit failure.
With about 13,000 Mati Corona, the Swedish government yesterday began imposing restrictions on the country's population - meanwhile on cafes, restaurants and sports competitions.
In the next stage, restrictions are expected on shops, shopping centers and workplaces.
Prime Minister Stefan Lofven warned that the first closure of Sweden since the onset of the epidemic would probably be unavoidable if the spread of the virus, which has intensified in recent days, was not brought under control.