SCIENCE sciencemag.org 4 SEPTEMBER 2020 • VOL 369 ISSUE 6508 1151CREDITS: (PHOTO) JOAN VALLS/URBANANDSPORT/NURPHOTO/AP IMAGES; (GRAPHICS) X. LIU/SCIENCE;(DATA) WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION CORONAVIRUS DISEASE DASHBOARDW
e’re at risk of gambling away
our success,” virologist Christian
Drosten warned in the German
newspaper Die Zeit earlier this
month. His message referred to
Germany, but it could have been
addressed to all of Europe. After beating back
COVID-19 in the spring, most of Europe is
seeing a resurgence. Spain is reporting close
to 10,000 cases a day, more than it had at the
height of the outbreak in the spring. France
is back to reporting thousands of cases a day.
In Germany, numbers are still low, but ris-
ing steadily. The pandemic is affecting coun-
tries that saw few cases in the spring, such
as Greece and Malta, but is also rebounding
in places that suffered terribly, including the
cities of Madrid and Barcelona.
Drosten, of the Charité University Hos-
pital in Berlin, is one of many calling for
renewed vigilance, and he and others are
urging a new control strategy that trades
blanket lockdowns for measures specifi-
cally targeting clusters of cases, which play
a key role in spreading the coronavirus.
“We successfully aborted the [first] wave
and now we should make sure that no
new wave builds,” epidemiologist Christian
Althaus of the University of Bern says.
Few dispute that Europe rose to the initial
challenge. In Bergamo, the capital of Italy’s
Lombardy region, crematoria were so over-burdened in March that army trucks had to
transport the dead to other cities—but on
24 May, Lombardy registered zero COVID-
deaths for the first time. By early July, the
European Union and the United Kingdom
together averaged fewer than 5000 new
cases per day, whereas the United Statesand Brazil (which together have roughly the
same population) had 50,000 and 40,000, re-
spectively. Europeans enjoyed a surprisingly
normal summer, with northern Europeans
flocking to Mediterranean beaches.
The rising case numbers today aren’t
quite comparable to the peak in April be-
cause countries are now testing far more
people on a daily basis. But the increase
shows that Europe relaxed measures too
early and too much, says virologist Ab
Osterhaus of the University of Veterinary
Medicine in Hanover, Germany. “The wrong
message was given, basically: We have done
a great job and now we can relax again.” In-
stead, Europe could have tried to emulate
New Zealand by stopping community trans-
mission completely and zealously guarding
against reintroductions, says Devi Sridhar,
a global health expert at the University of
Edinburgh who has been advising the Scot-
tish government. Scotland committed early
on to pushing case numbers down to zero,
but other countries did not, and now almost
all are seeing a resurgence.
People’s willingness to stay alert and
remember new rules wanes quickly, says
Cornelia Betsch, a psychologist at the Uni-
versity of Erfurt who has been monitoring
attitudes toward the pandemic in Germany.
“And we have been going for a while now,
and the end is not even clear.” Some coun-
tries saw workplace infections rise as people
returned to their offices, says GianfrancoIN DEPTH
By Kai KupferschmidtCOVID-Can Europe tame the pandemic’s next wave?
Countries seek new strategies as coronavirus cases are rising again across the continent
Vacationers on the beach
in Tamariu, on Spain’s
Costa Brava, on 17 August.020004000600080000200040006000800010,New cases per dayGermanyNew cases per daySpainMar.Apr.MayJun.Jul.Aug.Mar.Apr.MayJun.Jul.Aug.The coronavirus comeback
The number of new COVID-19 cases soared this past
month in France (not shown) and Spain. Germany
and other European countries saw a slower increase.“
Published by AAAS