Euro 2024 'causing summer Covid wave' as return of face masks urged
Euro 2024 could be to blame for the rise in Covid cases this summer and experts say we should look at face masks again.
A surge in summer Covid cases could be driven by Euro 2024, it has been suggested by medical experts - with a call to bring back face masks when future waves happen.
Health gurus writing in the British Medical Journal said May and June saw a rise in the number of people testing positive for Covid, with a jump from 4 percent of Covid tests being positive to 13 percent, in line with an increase in hospital admissions.
More worryingly, more than 1 in 100 deaths in England and Wales up to June 21 was caused by Covid, or 1.5 percent. However, there were still more deaths due to flu.
A professor writing in the BMJ suggested the Covid wave could be related to the Euros. Up and down the country, people are mixing households more and gathering in pubs to watch the matches, and a rise in Covid this summer aligns with summer 2021 - the last time the Euros were on.
Mark Woolhouse, professor of infectious disease epidemiology at the University of Edinburgh, said, “The surveillance of covid cases in the UK is far less intensive than it once was, so it is difficult to track the rise and fall of waves of infection, or to assess the severity of different variants, or to know how effective the vaccines are against them.
“Even so, there is a widespread impression of a growing 2024 summer wave, much as we saw in 2021 when (coincidently perhaps) there was also a Euro football tournament, and evidence that this contributed significantly to the spread of infection.”
Christina Pagel, professor of operational research in healthcare at University College London and a member of the Independent SAGE (Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunisation), said, “Covid is in no way a winter respiratory bug: its behaviour is nothing like flu or RSV, the other main respiratory viruses that can cause severe illness and do so every winter. While flu and RSV are pretty much confined to November to March, covid waves can and do happen at any time of year. We are still in three to four waves a year, each causing some disruption to people’s lives, employment, and the NHS.”
She added that during future waves, face masks could be brought back in healthcare settings and on public transport to help combat the spread.