Coronavirus: WHO warns of ‘alarming’ spread across Europe

The World Health Organisation has warned of “alarming” transmission rates of Covid-19 in Europe, saying weekly reported cases were now higher than during the pandemic’s peak and “a very serious situation” was unfolding across the continent. As France’s health minister warned of a “worrying rise” in intensive care admissions in some parts of the country and authorities from Madrid to Dublin weighed their next steps, the WHO’s regional director for Europe, Hans Kluge, said last week’s seven-day tally of new cases on the continent was 305,054, against 264,675 in the week of March 30th. More than half of European countries had reported increases of 10 percentage points or more during the past...