The third wave: What is happening in Europe?

There is some form of hope percolating around the United States.. Perhaps it was Joe Biden telling Americans during a nationwide address that maybe, just maybe, they could have a  cook out on the Fourth of July this year if all goes well! It appears no one from the government has taken notice to crowded stores and restaurants, to the slowly waning attention being paid to restrictions, and even to people openly disavowing masks ... 

Vaccine madness has taken hold. Biden promises that all Americans can starting getting in line for a May Day goal to be inoculated!

And yes.. "Vaccines are proven to work."  But these are new and fresh. Can we admittedly say the jury is out on what the final verdict is?  And health officials thus far not being candid on future boosters or annual vaccines may have to soon level with people about the potential..

Cases are dropping, we are told. 
Deaths are dropping.. 

The AP dispatched this feel good story this weekend about New York City springing to life, writing,

It’s still quiet, borderline moribund, in some neighborhoods, especially tourist-dependent locales in midtown Manhattan and in the financial district, where companies have made a wholesale shift to remote work. For-lease signs and boarded-up storefronts scar commercial strips all over the five boroughs.

But New York is no “ghost town,” as former President Donald Trump called it in October.

On multitudes of front stoops and sidewalks, people now lounge with friends, masked and 6 feet apart. Businesses are welcoming customers back after putting up sheets of plastic to protect cashiers and laying tape on the floor to keep patrons socially distant.

Maskless spring breaks are all the rage in South Florida..

x x x 

Across the pond in Europe and in some other nations, the situation could not be more dire. The Fourth Wave of COVID-19 is upon nations like Italy and Germany. 

Something is going wrong.. something is brewing. America has seemingly been a month behind Europe in these waves since March 2020... That should be alarming to anyone who is getting their July 4th BBQ guest list written.

GERMANY

“We have clear signs: The third wave in Germany has already begun,” Lothar Wieler, head of the Robert Koch Institute for Infectious Diseases, told reporters during a news conference Friday.

“The virus is not going to disappear, but once we have a base level of immunity in the population, we can control it,” he added.

x x x  

BRAZIL

“We’re trying to help people but this disease is much faster and more aggressive than the tactics we’ve been using,” Machado, 44, said of his team’s efforts to keep pace with a tripling of admissions.

“It’s like we’re flogging a dead horse,” he said, before adding: “This disease is going to kill many more people in Brazil.”

At the end of last year Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro – a Donald Trump-worshiping populist who has gleefully sabotaged Covid containment efforts – declared his country had reached “the tail end” of what was already one of the world’s worst outbreaks.

Bolsonaro was wrong.

Three months later Latin America’s largest nation has lost almost 100,000 more lives – taking its total death toll to more than 275,000, second only to the US – and been plunged into the deadliest chapter of its 13-month epidemic.

x x x

ITALY

And Easter Lockdown ...

Italy is facing another lockdown, as the government attempts to contain a recent surge of coronavirus cases, marred by the presence of new variants.
Half of Italy's 20 regions, which include the cities Rome, Milan and Venice, will be entering new coronavirus restrictions from Monday, March 15. The measures will be effective through April 6, according to a decree passed by Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi's cabinet on Friday.
In regions demarcated as "red zones" people will be unable to leave their houses except for work or health reasons, with all non-essential shops closed. In "orange zones," people will also be banned from leaving their town and their region -- except for work or health reasons -- and bars and restaurants will only be able to do delivery and take-away service.

What is happening in Europe!?

France reported 30,303 new coronavirus infections over the past 24 hours on Wednesday, with the number of new cases rising above 30,000 for the first time in two weeks. Health experts say the hospital system in the greater Paris region is close to breaking point, Reuters reported.

Meanwhile, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland have all recorded a sharp rise in cases that has prompted urgency among governments in eastern Europe to increase the rate of vaccinations. So much so that several countries have resorted to breaking ranks with the EU by authorizing Russia’s coronavirus vaccine Sputnik V, which has not yet been approved by the EU’s drug regulator.

Bulgaria and Serbia are also among the countries seeing a rise in cases, as well as Sweden and Italy.

HERE IS THE CURRENT VACCINE CHART THAT IS AVAILABLE: