Agencies

The Covid-19 death toll in Europe was set to pass 300,000 yesterday, according to a Reuters tally, and authorities fear that despite hopes for a new vaccine, fatalities and infections will continue to rise as the region heads into winter.

With just 10% of the world’s population, Europe accounts for almost a quarter of both the 50.9 million cases and 1.2 million deaths globally and even its well-equipped hospitals are feeling the strain.

The United States is the worst-affected country with 238,251 deaths from 10,110,552 cases. After the US, the hardest-hit countries are Brazil with 162,628 deaths, India with 127,059, Mexico with 95,255 and the United Kingdom with 49,063 deaths.

After achieving a measure of control over the pandemic with broad lockdowns earlier this year, case numbers have surged since the summer and governments have ordered a second series of restrictions to limit social contacts.

In all, Europe has reported some 12.3 million cases and 295,000 deaths and over the past week, it has seen 280,000 cases a day, up 10% from the week earlier, representing just over half of all new infections reported globally.

Hopes have been raised by Pfizer Inc’s announcement of a potentially effective new vaccine, but it is not expected to be generally available before 2021 and health systems will have to cope with the winter months unaided.

Britain, which has imposed a fresh lockdown in England, has the highest death toll in Europe at around 49,000 and health experts have warned that with a current average of more than 20,000 cases daily, the country will exceed its “worst case” scenario of 80,000 deaths.

But France, Spain, Italy and Russia have also reported hundreds of deaths a day and together, the five countries account for almost three quarters of the total fatalities.