How Europe should deal with covid-19

OVER THE next few years covid-19 will probably settle down as a seasonal disease, a lethal threat to the elderly and the poor in health, but to everyone else mostly a nuisance. However, as Europe is discovering, getting there will be perilous. The European Union is recording nearly a quarter of a million cases a day, more than at any time in the pandemic. Eleven months after vaccination first got under way, intensive-care wards in some regions are almost full. The World Health Organisation warned this week that 700,000 more Europeans could die by March.Amid growing alarm, governments are once again locking down. Austria has become the first rich country to demand that all of its citizens must be vaccinated or face a fine; Germany may follow. Demonstrators are taking to the streets to protest against new restrictions, including in the Netherlands, Belgium and Italy. As the disease spreads, confusion reigns about what measures are justified in the campaign to slow it.