Major European countries seeing increase in COVID cases in spite of high vaccination rates

Multiple major European nations are seeing an increase in SARS-CoV-2 transmission rates even after a sharp decline in cases over the last several weeks coupled with high vaccination rates.

The United Kingdom has seen its daily average cases more than double since the start of March, with an average of roughly 75,000 new cases per day presently, up from around 33,000 at the beginning of the month. 

Italy is seeing a rise in cases which began around the same time. Like the U.K., Italy had seen a sharp drop in cases following the subsiding of a surge of the Omicron variant of the virus, only to reverse course around the beginning of March. 

Germany, meanwhile, this week set a new record of confirmed COVID cases. Germany's rates had already remained notably elevated over the past few months in contrast to its European neighbors. 

All three countries have notably high vaccination rates. Both the U.K. and Germany have recorded roughly 75% of their populations being "fully vaccinated," while in Italy that number is around 80%.