Countries across Europe are seeing a resurgence in COVID-19 cases after successfully slowing outbreaks early in the year.
Some countries — such as Albania, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Montenegro, North Macedonia — are seeing higher case numbers in August than they did earlier in the year.
France, the UK, Poland, the Netherlands and Spain are likely dealing with the much-feared second wave and have started taking action to curb it. France, for example, declared 16,096 new cases on Thursday and the Netherlands 2,989 on Sunday — the highest figures they have recorded.
While on the face of it infection numbers might be higher, it could be accounted for by the increase in testing – many countries didn’t have the capacity to carry out tests in such a high volume earlier in the year.
*ECDC Methodology
The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control reports the number of deaths by the date of report whereas the national authorities may report deaths by date of death. Some countries also chose not to report deaths over the weekends and may proceed to minor rectifications afterwards. It may lead to minor discrepancies regarding the dates of the report.
