Swift action and mandatory masks contributed to lower death toll than elsewhere on continent
In western and southern Europe, coronavirus has taken a devastating toll, with people dying in their thousands each day, and doctors having to make appalling choices about which lives to save as health systems buckle under the number of cases.
But in central and eastern Europe (CEE), the pandemic has been contained to such an extent that the first glimpses of a post-lockdown world are visible. Shops, hotels, schools and even shopping centres are reopening.
The transcontinental divide is striking. So far, Spain has recorded 517 deaths per million people, Italy 453, France 353, and the UK 325. By contrast, Slovakia has recorded 4, Poland 16, the Czech Republic 21 and Austria 65. On Tuesday alone, Spain, Italy and the UK all suffered more deaths than the Czech Republic, Hungary, or Slovakia have recorded during the entire crisis.
We are doing very well,” Igor Matovic, Slovakia’s prime minister, said in a press conference on Wednesday of his country’s battle. “Perhaps even better than we expected.”
Part of the reason for the CEE countries’ relative success is good fortune. Italy and the UK had their first infections in January. The Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia, by contrast, did not record their first cases until the first week of March, giving them precious extra time to understand the deadly risks.
Another factor, in Austria at least, may have been who was infected first. “In contrast to Italy, [coronavirus] was introduced here to healthy people. It began spreading in Austria among a younger demographic — among skiers and international businesspeople,” said Thomas Czypionka, head of health economics and health policy at Vienna’s Institute of Higher Studies.
“The family structure here in Austria is [also] very different to that in Italy or China. Here just 5 per cent of over-30s live with their parents, so the spread among risk groups was further limited.”
But if they had good luck in how their outbreaks started, countries in central Europe made the most of this by reacting extremely quickly once the virus crossed their borders, according to Olga Loblova, a public health researcher at Cambridge university.
“The virus came to central Europe later, but they also used this time better,” she said. “There wasn’t any of the misguided exceptionalism we saw in the UK. No one [in CEE] looked at Italy and said: that would never happen to us.”
Slovakia, Poland and the Czech Republic were among the first countries in the EU to close their borders, and, along with Austria, also quickly introduced other far-reaching restrictions on daily life, ranging from closing all but non-essential shops to strictly limiting public gatherings.
The speed with which these restrictions on mass events were introduced was one of the most important reasons for CEE’s relative success, said Martin McKee, professor of European Public Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
In mid-March, the UK allowed 70,000 people to rub shoulders on each of the five days of the Cheltenham horseracing festival, while on March 7 one French town was busy breaking the record for the largest gathering of people dressed as smurfs.
By contrast, Austria cut the number of people who could gather in public to 100 on March 10, and the Czech Republic announced a limit of 30 two days later, barely a week after its first case. It then quickly cut it to two. Poland and Slovakia took similarly aggressive steps.
“[CEE] reacted before the epidemic got started . . . The Czech Republic and Slovakia moved very, very quickly,” said Prof McKee. “They did not have the Cheltenham festival . . . These big gatherings really do seem to have driven [the spread of the virus].”
Masks may also have played an important role. Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Austria all quickly required citizens to wear masks outside their homes, even though organisations such as the World Health Organization were not advising such steps.
In the middle of March, Slovakia’s new prime minister, Igor Matovic, and his health minister, Marek Krajci, appeared on television and were asked by presenter, Zlatica Puskarova, to put on masks to set an example.
“We couldn’t even imagine it then. We thought we’d be embarrassed, but she talked us into it and we got used to the masks even during the programme,” Mr Matovic said at a press conference on Wednesday. “And now all Slovakia has got used to them.”
Roman Prymula, the epidemiologist overseeing the Czech Republic’s pandemic response, said the obligation to wear masks outdoors had also played a role in his country, where it was introduced two weeks after the first infection. “This looks now like one of the most important measures,” he said.
However, analysts caution that coronavirus can erupt so quickly that the success that CEE countries have had in the first phase is no guarantee that they will be equally successful in the arguably even more complex process of judging how, and when, to reopen for business.
Poland’s prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, acknowledged as much on Wednesday, as he announced the latest phase of his country’s exit from lockdown.
“We can’t be sure that we have completely got control of coronavirus,” he said. “Sometimes we will accelerate the loosening of restrictions, but unfortunately it may also be necessary to take a step back. We admit with humility that coronavirus is a very dangerous phenomenon.”
Source:Financial Times