Low-vaccinated Eastern Europe braces for Omicron surge

Bucharest: As the fast-spreading Coronavirus variant Omicron rages through Western Europe, officials and experts in low-vaccinated Eastern Europe anticipate a post-holiday explosion of COVID-19 cases in much of the region.

Many countries in Eastern Europe only recently emerged from infection waves that put a catastrophic strain on health care systems, and at times have tallied some of the highest pandemic death rates globally.

Now, with Omicron already confirmed across the region and the winter holidays bringing more community gatherings and international travel, public health officials are predicting a sharp virus surge in the coming weeks. Adriana Pistol, director of Romania's National Center for Surveillance and Control of Communicable Diseases, warned Wednesday that the country could see a peak of 25,000 new daily cases during the expected next wave.

Romania is the European Union's second-least vaccinated member nation. Noting that roughly 60% of Romania's people over age 65 or living with chronic diseases remain unvaccinated, Pistol said: Even if the Omicron strain does not have the same level of severity(,) ... the health system will be overloaded anyway and reach levels recorded this year in October.

The government started requiring travellers to complete passenger locator forms as of Dec. 20 to help track infections, but Pistol said many have failed to fill them out.

Exhausted medical personnel watched with dread as countries with high vaccination rates such as France, Italy and the UK reported record cases as Omicron spread in recent days.

Neighbouring Bulgaria is the EU's least-vaccinated member, with just 32% of adults having received a full vaccine.

It, too, suffered a deadly fall outbreak, but its vaccine rollout has continued at a sluggish pace.

Government data shows that only 255,000 booster jabs have been administered in the country of 7 million people.

In the Balkans region of Europe, Bosnia, Slovenia, Serbia, and Croatia have all confirmed Omicron cases but so far not tightened restrictions to control the variant's spread.

The Czech Republic, which has a population of 10.7 million, is among the European countries hardest hit by the pandemic and is currently registering around 6,000 new

cases a day.