According to the official number published by World Health Organization (https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/situation-reports), the spread of the virus continues constantly and reached more than 17 Millions cases and more than 680.000 deaths on a global scale.
The most critical regions remain the American states, some Asian states (in particular, Philippines and India) and South Africa. In these regions, the weekly number of cases exceeds 20.000, a value similar to those registered in Europe in the critical weeks between end of March and end of April.
Nowadays, the situation in Europe is completely different. The weekly number of cases and deaths dramatically reduced in the last months. Table 1 displays the weekly number of cases and deaths for the EU27 between 1st and 31st July 2020. The majority of the nations register less than 1000 cases per weeks and this situation does not differ significantly from previous month (see last column). The big differences are in Spain (+3600 cases per week in the last month), Romania (+2000 cases per week in the last month), France (+1200 cases per week in the last month) and Sweden (-2460 cases per week in the last month).
However, even with absolute numbers well below those of the critical weeks in March and April, the diversity of the situation among EU nations and the reactions of single states creates discussions and disputes.
I think that there are two major aspects to be considered.
The first is that the virus is still present in Europe and that a second wave (overall or more localized) of critical cases cannot be excluded.
Therefore, in my opinion, it is clear that the basic protection measures (for example, social distancing of 1,5 m or wearing a mask in crowded place indoors) must be applied by anyone, beyond what laws issued by individual states can establish. It is a matter of common sense and intelligence.
The second aspect is that each government must put all the effort to re-start gradually activities. Delaying the restart of many activities, continuing to underline or prolonging a state of emergency (see the situation in Italy, https://www.gazzettaufficiale.it/atto/serie_generale/caricaDettaglioAtto/originario?atto.dataPubblicazioneGazzetta=2020-07-30&atto.codiceRedazionale=20G00112&elenco30giorni=true), without the support of official and public data, creates frustation and confusion in the population. And much worse: this gives strength to various populists, conspiracy theorists and denialists.
Therefore, in my opinion, each government should apply severe restrictive measures, only when and where necessary. It is again a matter of common sense and intelligence.
In summary, we all (citiziens and governments) need to understand that we are living a unique and unprecedented situation, and that we need to adapt to it, using an organ that we all should have: the brain!
Deny the truthfulness of what is happening in this 2020 or stopping life completely are both unhelpful and unhealthy attitudes.
I conclude by saying that I cannot deny that I was pleased to see that, in sports, some activities gradually restarted in Europe. More specifically in Trail-Running, few events took place between the end of June and last weekend: in Germany, the 7th edition of the Sachsentrail https://baer-service.de/ergebnisse/SST/2020/), and in France, the Trail EDF Cenis Tour https://www.edfcenistour.com/).
These are positive signs, well aware that the virus is still present.
Kind Regards
Andrea De Filippo
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Note: other data and analysis about COVID-19 can be found here: https://www.emigrantrailer.com/category/covid-19/
