U.S. and Europe diverge as they deal with the pandemic and vaccines.

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Sun, 2021-06-06 14:46 — mike kraft

LONDON — Over Memorial Day weekend, 135,000 people jammed the oval at the Indianapolis 500. Restaurants across the United States were thronged with customers as mask mandates were being discarded.

The formula, which gained the Biden administration’s blessing, was succinct: In essence, if you are fully vaccinated, you can do as you please.

But while the United States appears to be trying to close the curtain on the pandemic, across the ocean, in Britain and the European Union, it is quite a different story.

Despite plunging infection levels and a surging vaccine program, parts of Europe are maintaining limits on gatherings, reimposing curbs on travel and weighing local lockdowns.

In Britain, the spread of a new, highly contagious variant first detected in India has scrambled calculations just as the country planned to return to something more like prepandemic life on June 21.

Parts of Britain have decided to extend lockdown restrictions. This past week, the government tightened its travel rules, including for the fully vaccinated, by removing Portugal — the most popular remaining European tourist destination — from the list of places where Britons could fly without stringent quarantines.

And scientists are heatedly debating whether to go ahead with a June 21 reopening, with some saying that the costs of delaying it by a few weeks would pale in comparison to the damage that could be wrought by giving the variant first detected in India, known as Delta, extra opportunities to spread while people are still acquiring immunity.

Though vaccinations got off to a slow start in much of Europe, they have since helped drive down cases, as in the United States. Nevertheless, on the fundamental question of how to approach an end to coronavirus restrictions, America and Europe have diverged. ...

Since the Delta variant arrived in Britain in March, it has rapidly outspread other versions of the virus, including the very contagious variant first identified in Britain that contributed to deadly waves around the world this winter. That, in turn, has created localized outbreaks that have nudged Covid cases up.

A top scientific adviser to the British government estimated on Friday that the Delta variant was roughly 60 percent more contagious than the earlier one from Britain. Health officials also warned that cases caused by the Delta variant might lead to a higher risk of hospitalization, though it was too early to say for certain.

The divergent strategies of European nations and the United States also reflect broader differences in how Western governments are thinking about their responsibility to unvaccinated people, scientists said. ...

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