A protracted swell of cases highlights Europe’s vaccine problems

THE WORLDEU is split into three types of covid-19 countries. The first consists of those with lots of recent cases countered by vigorous vaccination campaigns: America and Britain, for example. The second includes the likes of Australia, Japan and China, with few vaccines but few cases to worry about. The last is made up of places with lots of new cases but little vaccination. Continental Europe is the only big, rich region in that unfortunate ward. (Much of Latin America is in a similar spot, and data are patchy in many poor countries.) It is an unexpected outcome for a continent that thought it had managed the first phase of the pandemic rather well.About a quarter of all cases and deaths from covid-19 since the start of the year have been in countries, whose citizens make up just 6% of the global population, according to Our World in Data, which collates national statistics. A spate of infections that started six months ago has proved stubbornly enduring—more of a swell than a wave. This week Italy became the sixth (and smallest) country to record over 100,000 deaths.