美联社， 疫情在欧美又开始上升，住院人数增加，对此，专家们的意见两极

Mask requirements have been dropped. Free mass testing is a thing of the past. And for the first time since spring 2020, people can go abroad for holidays without ordering tests or filling out lengthy forms.

 

That sense of freedom is widespread even as infections soared in Britain in March, driven by the milder but more transmissible omicron BA.2 variant that’s rapidly spreading around Europe, the U.S. and elsewhere.

 

The situation in the U.K. may portend what lies ahead for other countries as they ease coronavirus restrictions.

 

France and Germany have seen similar spikes in infections in recent weeks, and the number of hospitalizations in the U.K. and France has again climbed — though the number of deaths per day remains well below levels seen earlier in the pandemic.

 

Britain stands out in Europe because it ditched all mitigation policies in February, including mandatory self-isolation for those infected. Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s conservative government is determined to stick to its “living with COVID” plan, but experts disagree on whether the country is coping well.

 

Some scientists argue it’s the right time to accept that “living with COVID” means tolerating a certain level of disruption and deaths, much like we do for seasonal flu. Others believe that Britain’s government lifted restrictions too quickly and too soon. They warned that deaths and hospital admissions could keep rising because more people over 55 — those who are most likely to get seriously ill from COVID-19 — are now getting infected despite high levels of vaccination.

 

Hospitals are again under strain, both from patients with the virus and huge numbers of staff off sick, said National Health Service medical director Stephen Powis.

 

“Blinding ourselves to this level of harm does not constitute living with a virus infection — quite the opposite,” said Stephen Griffin, a professor in medicine at the University of Leeds. “Without sufficient vaccination, ventilation, masking, isolation and testing, we will continue to ‘live with’ disruption, disease and sadly, death, as a result.”

 

Others, like Paul Hunter, a medicine professor 

 

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• 又要从东方传来了… -Cometzone- ♂ (0 bytes) () 04/10/2022 postreply 07:36:22

• 除非死亡率大大提高，这边大家已经没有恐惧了。 -无形剑- ♂ (0 bytes) () 04/10/2022 postreply 07:42:17