Monday Morning News & Notes
The EU accuses Russia of war crimes. Europe’s COVID situation may be easing.
🇺🇦/ 🇷🇺 War
🇪🇺/ 🇷🇺 🇺🇦
European Union leaders are meeting with the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in The Hague to discuss the issue of war crimes committed when Russia invaded Ukraine. Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan met with EU Foreign Affairs Minister Josep Burrell on Sunday. Today he will meet with foreign affairs ministers of the EU countries. The goal is to determine how the European Union can cooperate with the ICC on the war crimes investigation.
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The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and other top. EU officials paid a visit to Ukraine over the weekend. They went straight to Bucha, the city where pictures and videos of Russian atrocities rocked the world. Ukrainian soldiers liberating the town found the bodies of civilians littering the streets, some with their hands tied behind their backs. They also discovered mass graves and other horrors.
Ursula von der Leyen:
“If it is not a war crime, then what is a war crime.”
During her visit to Ukraine Ursula von der Leyen pledged another €500 million to the Ukraine war effort. She also announced the process to admit Ukraine into the European Union will be “accelerated.” On top of all this, von der Leyen said, the EU is working on a sixth round of sanctions against Russia.
🇫🇮 🇸🇪/ 🇷🇺
Finland, and possibly Sweden, continue to gravitate closer to joining NATO and it continues to draw the wrath of the Kremlin. Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin, on the TV1 and YLE radio program on Saturday, reiterated Finland will make a decision to join, or not to join, NATO this spring. However, Marin also added that the hope is Sweden will “move forward at the same time and in the same direction” as Finland.
A long time member of the Finnish parliament, Erkki Tuomioja, told the media publication Aamulehti that Finland will submit an application to join NATO as early as within a few weeks or as late as within a few months. Tuomioja also added that Sweden's Minister of Defense Peter Hultqvist has proposed a Finnish-Swedish defense alliance as a back-up plan.
Pretty quickly after Tuomioja’s comments were published Finnish Defense Minister Antti Kaikkonen responded by denying there was a back-up defense alliance being worked on between Finland and Sweden.
Russia is obviously not happy about this and has already made some pretty serious threats if either Finland and/or Sweden join NATO. On Friday, a large cyber-attack was launched on all Finnish government and ministry websites.
🇫🇮/ 🇷🇺
Authorities in Finland are investigating several violations of its airspace by Russian aircraft. On Friday morning, Finland’s Minister of Defense Antti Kaikkonen says a “Russian state aircraft” is suspected of violating Finnish airspace in the Gulf of Finland. Kaikkonen says the aircraft was in Finnish airspace for about three minutes. He says Finnish Border Guards are investigating. The aircraft may have been an IL-96-300, which Russia uses as an aircraft for the President and other top officials.
Finland’s National Bureau of Investigation is looking into four other instances of Russian passenger aircraft also violating Finnish airspace in the Gulf of Finland. In all four instances, the aircraft violated Finnish airspace for no more than two minutes.
European airspace has been closed to all Russia aircraft as part of the pile of sanctions levied against Russia by the European Union. Violating European airspace is punishable by a hefty fine or prison terms of up to four years.
🇬🇧/ 🇺🇦
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson paid a surprise visit to Kyiv on Saturday. He flew in unannounced and met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The meeting was revealed in the tweet below.
Johnson and Zelensky then did a walking tour of Kyiv accompanied by heavily armed soldiers.
Shortly after the meeting was made public the United Kingdom announced it was sending 800 more anti-tank NLAW missiles; more Javelin anti-tank missiles, ammunition, more Starstreak air defense systems, and other military equipment including helmets, body armour, and night vision goggles.
🇩🇰/ 🇺🇦
On the first. Wednesday of every May in Denmark the country tests its warning siren system. This year, with thousands of Ukrainians flowing into Denmark as they flee their war-torn country, Danish officials are working to ensure the siren test doesn’t cause any undue alarm. They are putting put out plenty of notice this year that this happens every year and that is a test and nothing more. The information has also been published in Ukrainian and Russian.
Health Minister Magnus Heunicke:
“We are working hard to ensure that those who have come to safety in Denmark experience the security that was robbed from them by Putin's troops. But there is also something others can do. It's a small thing that may seem insignificant to us. But for them, it can seem overwhelming if they are not prepared. This applies to both Ukrainian children and adults. Before the sirens sound in our streets, please help to tell them that this is an annual test we carry out.”
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The health minister says that Denmark has also received the first patients from Ukraine who are receiving vital treatments. Heunicke says they are also expecting to have Ukrainians wounded in the war to be airlifted in for treatment as well.
“All of this is being prepared by our healthcare professionals. And mechanisms have been put in place so that we can quickly provide answers as to whether we have the capacity and the specialists for the patients who need to be moved away from Ukraine's neighbors. That work is done in our hospitals and with our ministries and agencies.”
Denmark has been asked by Ukraine to take people being evacuated from hospitals in Ukraine, either in the path of Russian troops or Russian missile bombardment. These would include children fighting cancer and other critical diseases requiring specialized care.
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Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen is shedding a little light on her government’s plan to wean Denmark off of Russian natural gas. Early in March, the Danish government announced it intended to severe its energy dependency on Russia as fast as humanely possible. Frederiksen now says that the first step will be to retrofit 400,000 homes that have gas boilers to ones that run using other fuels.
Frederiksen spoke to Berlingske:
“We must have them on district heating or individual heat pumps where it can make sense. We must ensure that Danes get away from natural gas.”
She said more details on how the government will close the door on all Russian energy will come when the full proposal is tabled after Easter holidays.
🇩🇪/ 🇷🇺
Germany, which has been handcuffed in its response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by its reliance on Russian energy, has tabled a number of new laws to get the country to almost 100% renewable energy by 2035. The legislation outlines a two step process to increase rentable energy use while drastically decreasing reliance on Russian gas. Among other things, the plan calls for a doubling of wind energy production and tripling solar power capacity. The first benchmark is to reach 80% of all energy usage in Germany to be from renewable energy sources by 2030 and then increasing that within the next five years to almost 100%.
🦠Pandemic🦠
🇩🇰
In Denmark, COVID hospitalization numbers bounced around a little over the weekend but ended up falling well below where they were in Thursday’s update. As of Sunday, there were 876 COVID hospitalizations, which is 113 fewer than it was three days prior. ICU numbers (18) are unchanged from Thursday, and of those the number of people on a ventilator (8) inched downward (-1). Infection admissions to a psychiatric ward (258) dropped (-39) in the last 72 hours.
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Pandemic hospitalizations in Denmark have in a matter of months swung from one end of the age spectrum to the other. During the height of the initial Omicron wave, Denmark saw the highest number of hospitalizations among those under the age of 19, including very high numbers of infants. Over the last seven days, it is those 65 years old and older who are being admitted due to an infection in numbers far higher than any other age group.
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Since Thursday’s update, Denmark has added 6,859 COVID infections (underreported) while suffering another 71 coronavirus deaths. With 5,908 total to-date pandemic deaths, Denmark is approaching passing the 6,000 mark likely within the next week.
There were 11,575 PCR tests taken on Saturday equaling a positivity percentage of 14.87%.
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On the vaccination front, there is not much movement as the inoculation effort continues to creep along. There were just 292 booster doses administered on Saturday. To date, 82.3% of the total population have one dose, 80.8% have two, and 61.5% have a booster dose.
🇸🇪
COVID numbers are falling like a rock in Sweden. Only seniors in nursing homes and those admitted to hospitals can get a COVID test in Sweden. In its latest pandemic assessment, the Swedish Public Health Agency says there were just under 5,000 confirmed coronavirus cases in week 13, a 30% drop compared to the week previous. The number of people getting a COVID test also dropped that week by 22%, with about 28,000 people getting a PCR test. That equals a positivity percentage in the 17% neighborhood.
The agency says infection spread in the country is still very high, noting the ‘dark number’ of cases not being caught by testing with COVID tests restricted to those in hospital or in elderly care.
There were 17 severe infection cases admitted to intensive care units in Sweden in the week covering the last few days of March and the first few days of April. COVID fatalities also appear to be on the decline going from a weekly average of 263 deaths in weeks 8 through 10 to 190 lives lost in week 11. Keep in mind Sweden has been struggling with a backlog of processing COVID deaths for some months now.
State Epidemiologist Anders Lindblom:
“The pandemic is not over, and the spread of infection in society is still significant. We also see that the number of cases in parts of Europe is increasing now. Therefore, it is still important to get vaccinated, and to maintain the protection with the help of booster doses when recommended. In this way, we get good protection against serious illness in the population.”
Since last week, the Swedish Public Healfh Agency has recommended a 2nd booster dose for everyone over the age of 65. To date, 63% of people in Sweden 18 years old and older, have had two doses and a booster shot. Of those 80 years old and older 57% have received a fourth vaccine dose.
🇳🇴
Norway has added 1,355 infections (underreported) and had no new pandemic deaths since its update on Friday.
The Norwegian Institute of Public Health no longer reports daily hospitalization numbers. It does report weekly COVID admissions (236), which are down from the previous week (-116).
So far, 80.4% of Norwegians 12 years old and older have one vaccine dose, 74.7% have two, and 54.1% have a booster shot.
🇫🇮
Finland doesn’t update its COVID numbers on weekends. It will table three days worth of data later today.
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Social and healthcare services have managed to deal with the COVID pandemic fairly well, but while the system bent and didn’t break, it is showing some cracks. That is the assessment of a new report from the Finnish Institute for Public Health.
In order to deal with the pandemic health officials had to borrow resources and manpower from non-emergency social and healthcare services. This has had an impact in the form of backlogs, increased waiting times, and a reduction in basic services, especially for vulnerable populations.
The agency notes children and young people are among those struggling as pandemic worries, distance learning, and cuts in school, social, and healthcare services take a toll. The institute says rates of anxiety and depression had been climbing before the pandemic, but since COVID has arrived it has noted “an even sharper increase.”
The other major challenge is a number of short staffing issues in the social and healthcare sectors. Especially problematic is a nationwide shortage of psychiatrists and psychologists, which has out a serious crimp in mental health services. Another sector struggling with staffing shortages is among nursing and senior harms care staff. The agency says this staffing shortage has also grown to include nurses and community nurses.
Director of Evaluation Nina Knape:
“The worsening nationwide staff shortage in several social and health care professional groups is a big challenge for the areas that will soon be providing services as the population continues to age and the need for services grows.”
🇪🇺/🦠
The COVID situation seems in some ways to be easing across Europe again. But a deeper look at the numbers shows a combination of very mixed results and testing rates so low the overall situation has become extremely difficult to determine. That is the upshot of the latest weekly assessment from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.
As of the week ending April 3, the ECDC says the recent coronavirus resurgence appeared to be slowing down. Of note, the agency says there are signs that an explosion of cases among older populations “may not translate into rates of severe disease as significant as those seen during the initial Omicron wave.” While fewer European countries reported increasing infection numbers among seniors week to week, four nations saw record-high cases among those 65 years old and older.
The overall COVID incidence rate per 100,000 people eased slightly, with a rate of 1,778 in the week ending April 3, compared to 1,907 the week before. That ends three weeks of steady increases.
The 14 day pandemic death rate per million population also saw its first week of declines, with a rate of 26.3, down from 30.4 the week previous.
Looking at the more reliable COVID hospitalization barometer, of 28 EU countries reporting data on hospital and ICU admissions and occupancy, the ECDC says six reported increasing numbers in one or both categories. Four countries saw rising intensive care unit numbers.
As of this update, the ECDC has discontinued the country-by country COVID assessment because testing numbers across Europe are now so low, determining each country’s situation has become impossible.
On the European vaccination front, 72.5% of the total population has two vaccine doses and 52.8% have been boosted.
The Omicron variant reigns supreme in Europe, making up 100% of all sequenced positive test results up to the end of March. Looking at all sub-variants, BA.2 accounts for 82.7% of all sequenced test results with the parent original BA.1 Omicron strain covering the difference.
Over the next two weeks, the ECDC is forecasting infection numbers to continue to drop, taking into account the uncertainty of lower testing numbers. On the other hand hospitalization numbers should remain stable while fatalities could increase.
🇬🇧🦠
The recombinant COVID variant Omicron XE has been identified in the United Kingdom. The variant is a mixture of both the BA.1 and BA.2 variants. The UK Health Security Agency says over 600 people have been confirmed to have Omicron XE so far. The earliest confirmed case was on January 19, likely meaning the hybrid variant has been circulating for a while now. The UKHSA says Omicron XE has a growth rate 9.8% higher than the hyper-contagious BA.2 strain. The WHO calculates its growth rate at 10% higher than BA.2.
UKHSA’s Chief Medical Advisor, Professor Susan Hopkins says as with all new variants, there are more questions than answers right now.
“This particular recombinant, XE, has shown a variable growth rate and we cannot yet confirm whether it has a true growth advantage. So far there is not enough evidence to draw conclusions about transmissibility, severity, or vaccine effectiveness.”
Omicron XE has also been confirmed in several other countries including Thailand and Canada.
🌏💉
Moderna recalled some 700,000 COVID vaccine doses on Friday due to contaminated bottles. The doses in question were manufactured by Rovi. Out of an abundance of safety, the company says it is recalling the entire vaccine batch due to the one contaminated bottle issue. The pharmaceutical company says it does not believe other batches are a concern. Over 900 million doses of the Moderna vaccine have been administered so far around the globe.
🇨🇳
What is being described as a humanitarian crisis is unfolding in Shanghai, China. The city of over 26 million people has been under a strict COVID lockdown since last week as China battles its worst coronavirus outbreak of the pandemic. The lockdown was supposed to be lifted on Tuesday, but authorities have now extended it indefinitely. Videos have begun circulating of residents screaming from their high rise apartments in the city as frustrations and panic begin to boil over. It has apparently been difficult to get food and medicine for the locked down population. Foreign residents with lines of communication to the outside world are sharing stories of mounting concern as they live on dwindling supplies of food.
On Sunday, China reported nearly 25,000 COVID cases, according to Reuters. With a high number of unvaccinated seniors, the hyper-contagious Omicron variant, and China’s penchant for censoring information, the real numbers are certainly much higher.
🇨🇦
Hospitalizations in Canada are increasing as another infection wave arrives. The Public Health Agency of Canada says the average daily number of COVID cases in hospital in week 13, was 2,241. This is a 15% increase from the seven day average. In intensive care units, the average daily number was 277, a 1% decrease from the week prior. Hospitalization rates remain higher among the unvaccinated population than among those who are fully vaccinated.
During week 13, there was an average of 42,836 daily COVID tests taken across the country, equaling a weekly positivity percentage of 18.3%, which is a week-over week increase.
PHAC says there were an average of 5,957 new infections per day over week 13, again numbers that have risen compared to the week before. The agency advises taking case numbers with caution due to the low testing numbers and the ‘real’ number is likely much higher. It says B.C, Ontario, Quebec, and the Yukon all registered increasing coronavirus numbers week over week.
In Canada, Omicron is king accounting for 93% of all sequenced positive test results. In less than 1% of the cases it is the Delta variant, while 5% are “variants of concern of an undetermined lineage.”
There were 159 COVID deaths in week 13, which is the same number of lives lost the previous week.