Eastern European countries are being hit by a wave of covid deaths

ON NOVEMBER 6TH teams of medics dressed in full protective gear packed equipment into a Romanian military transport plane before pushing beds with two severely ill covid-19 patients up the ramp and inside. As the propellers began to whirr, the back door slowly closed and the plane lumbered up the runway heading for Denmark. “There is no secret,” says Raed Arafat, who is co-ordinating Romania’s fight against covid: the country’s hospitals are “overflowing”. About 90 patients have been evacuated to Denmark, Germany, Hungary and elsewhere. Teams of doctors are also flying in from all over Europe to help their beleaguered colleagues.

Across Europe the numbers of people infected with the highly contagious Delta variant are rising, and many governments are contemplating or imposing new restrictions. But this wave is affecting some countries far more than others. From the Balkans to the Baltics an arc of susceptibility has emerged, encompassing a swathe of countries with low vaccination rates.