In the coming weeks, a lot of people are going to die in Europe and some are remarkably blasé or uninformed about it.

Europe-wide trends are following Florida trends of high case loads in young people translating to rising ICU admissions and death after a 4-week lag:

Cases in Europe (excluding Russia):

July 26th - Aug 1st: 81,923
Aug 2nd - Aug 8th: 109,026
Aug 9th - Aug 15th: 122,165
Aug 16th - Aug 22nd: 150,336

From the end of July to the 3rd week in August weekly cases doubled. 150,000 cases per week is a lot of infection.

Total number of people in ICU in Europe (excluding Russia):

July 26th - Aug 1st: 2,835
Aug 2nd - Aug 8th: 2,878
Aug 9th - Aug 15th: 2,880
Aug 16th - Aug 22nd: 2,874

So while cases in younger people were rising dramatically Europe-wide, the picture in ICU was very stable.

Weekly Deaths in Europe (excluding Russia):

July 26th - Aug 1st: 1,437
Aug 2nd - Aug 8th: 1,493
Aug 9th - Aug 15th: 1,463
Aug 16th - Aug 22nd: 1,459

Again, the increased case load was not translating to rising deaths because of the young demographic of new infections.

Now add in this past week.

ICU:

Aug 9th - Aug 15th: 2,880
Aug 16th - Aug 22nd: 2,874

Aug 30th - Sep 5th: 3,717

Deaths:

Aug 9th - Aug 15th: 1,463
Aug 16th - Aug 22nd: 1,459

Aug 30th - Sep 5th: 1,778

The coming week will see well over 2,000 deaths in Europe, and the fortnight after that over 4,000.

This isn't psychic powers - deaths lag behind and it's a simple extrapolation from the rapid increase in ICU admission rates, that show no signs of letting up.

Spain alone are at basically 1,000 admitted to ICU today, while a fortnight ago they were barely over 500.

418 died in Spain this week, compared to 173 the previous week.

At current trends, there will be close to 1,000 deaths per week in mid-to-late September in Spain.

There was (and is) a dangerous complacency surrounding new cases in Europe.

"Ahh it's only young people, it'll be grand".

It won't be grand.

You can't sustain that amount of infection in the community and still protect nursing homes and elderly people as effectively as before.

For nearly all of the summer, if you googled "nursing home outbreaks in Europe" you'd get very few articles.

Now there are hundreds of outbreaks across Spain, France and elsewhere in Europe.

Staff are not doing anything differently, they're still doing the right things.

When infection is widespread, the likelihood of a nurse, carer, visitor having Covid19 increases massively and, in turn, makes it very difficult for them to keep it out.

Covid19 is so transmissible that even best practice isn't always enough, and they are 100% doing their best.

Ireland isn't immune to any of this, if we maintain 120 - 150 cases per day, we're categorically going to see rising ICU and deaths.

If it slips slightly so that 300 cases per day becomes the norm, we're in even bigger doo-doo.

Covid19 was mysterious in February but it's better understood now.

People are pointing to the fact deaths are a lot lower in Europe than April, which they are.

But becoming desensitized to 4,000 dead per week, on the basis it's lower than 15,000, seems a cold logic to me.

We can do something about it so we don't sleepwalk right into a mess here this winter, under a false assumption that it's only young people.

-Basic hygiene measures
-Mask
-Socialise & stay healthy but avoid large groups
-Reduce close contacts
-Get a test if you feel unwell