European countries should increase vaccinations and restore measures such as wearing masks in public transport and indoors to avoid stricter measures as the autumn and winter seasons approach, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned on Tuesday, Agerpres reported.

In an interview with the Reuters agency, the director of the WHO in Europe, Hans Kluge, called on the countries of the continent to act now to prevent the saturation of sanitary systems, in the conditions of the intensive spread of the Omicron BA.5 subvariant. .

“We have an increase in the number of cases (…), in a society that functions almost as before” the pandemic, said the WHO official, who insisted on the need to wear a mask, ventilate closed spaces and administer a second dose of the booster vaccine before serums specific to the new variants will be available in the fall.

These stabilization measures must be implemented to avoid further stricter measures, Hans Kluge emphasized.

The WHO says the situation in Europe is the same as last summer

“I don’t think that society is ready for the introduced lockdowns”, after those that have been in place since the beginning of the pandemic, he also noted. “It’s pretty clear now that we’re in a situation similar to last summer.” With the only difference The Omicron version is dominant, said the same representative of the WHO in a press release quoted by the EFE agency.

“With the increasing number of cases, we also see an increase in the number of hospitalizations, which will increase even more in the autumn and winter months, after schools reopen, people return from holidays and with the arrival of winter, social interaction will move to closed spaces,” predicts Hans Kluge, again insisting on the re-introduction of the mask in public transport and indoors and the introduction of a second dose of the booster vaccine.

Almost three million new cases of COVID-19 were reported in Europe last week, accounting for about half of the global total. During the same period, the number of hospitalizations doubled and almost 3,000 people died from COVID-19.