The more infection control measures you employ and the more stringently you employ them, the less infections/deaths you will have. The more you drive it down to zero, the more stability you will have. Therefore don't lift restrictions too early like in Ireland - especially if you have an infectious northern neighbour. It's not that difficult.

Because of the exponential nature of the spread, this is one of the few situations where black-and-white thinking is appropriate. People should stop trying to find explanations in external factors like culture, geography or what not. In the second wave there are no excuses.

Finland/Norway are European champions because -among other lessons learned from the first wave- they are vigilant about travel. That's why there are travel restrictions, mandatory quarantine after entry and Norwegian soldiers guarding the border to Sweden. The first wave was accelerated by ski trips (Ischgl etc.) and the second wave was found by genetic sequencing to have been fuelled by summer vacations in Spain.

The new, more infectious [English] mutant B.117 is now changing the situation in an unfavourable way. In Ireland it was found in 9% of samples before Christmas. Last week it was 25%. If the new English and South African variants cause infectiousness (R0) to go up then control measures will have to be even more stringent and vaccination rates will also have to go up to end this crisis. But this is what happens when you let the virus circulate, it mutates into something more infectious and sometimes it becomes deadlier. Thanks. What's especially grating in the UK is the weak monitoring of borders. For decades the Brexiters have been going on about border control, and now that it is essential, Johnson and his ilk couldnt be bothered. Instead there are exemptions for highly capitalized businesspeople. What a shitshow.

_{Schengen is toast!}