It was supposed to be a post-COVID-19 summer in Europe. Masks are gone in most places, and vacation season is in full swing as workers rush for the beaches and cities they missed in the two years marked by the pandemic. But instead, the reality confronting people is that the virus never went away.
A super-transmissible subvariant of the omicron strain, known as BA.5, is fueling a fresh increase in infections, with cases climbing across the U.K. and the continent. Intensive-care admissions are rising, according to the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control, which has warned that another wave of the disease is starting.
The ending of restrictions on international travel and the return of mass-participation events such as music festivals are also helping the virus to spread. And cases may already be far higher than the figures currently show, given most countries have dramatically scaled back testing.
