Fans were returning to Europe’s football stadiums and Covid cases were on the rise, leading to questions from experts

LONDON – The scenes ahead of the Euro 2020 football match between England and Scotland did not look like a pandemic.

Tens of thousands of fans, many of them without a mask, came to London for the game on June 18, filling planes with loud songs and turning the city’s Leicester Square into something resembling a music festival.

Many left London with more than one hangover. This week Public Health Scotland announced that nearly 1,300 have tested positive for Covid-19 since then.

It wasn’t an isolated incident.

On Thursday, the World Health Organization warned that Euro 2020 – a pan-continental four-year football tournament whose quarter-finals will be played on Friday – will lead to an increase in coronavirus cases across Europe.

Western governments have relied on mass vaccination of vaccines in the hopes that it will restore the kind of mass spectator events that were considered too risky last year.

But as cases rise again in parts of Europe, likely fueled by the Delta variant, which is far more transmissible and believed to bypass some vaccines a little better, these loose measures are being put to the test. Some experts call for a more cautious approach until a greater percentage of people are vaccinated and cases start to decline.

Vaccines appear to reduce hospital stays and deaths in places like the UK, where the Delta variant first identified in India is prevalent, but it is unclear to what extent.

“We have to look far beyond the stadiums themselves,” WHO chief emergency officer Catherine Smallwood told reporters on Thursday. “We have to see how people get there. Do they travel in large, overcrowded convoys of buses? And when they leave the stadiums, do they go to overcrowded bars and pubs to see the games?”

She added, “It’s these little continuous events that are driving the spread of the virus.”

Others were even more devastating.

Euro 2020 is one of several events this summer that will bring tens of thousands of spectators to the venues. Others are the current Wimbledon tennis tournament and the English Silverstone Formula 1 car race on July 18th.

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Federal Interior Minister Horst Seehofer described UEFA, the European football umbrella organization that oversees Euro 2020, as “completely irresponsible” to allow mass gatherings. In Germany, the cases have dropped to a low level, and the Euro 2020 games were played in a 20 percent full stadium in Munich.

“I cannot explain why UEFA is not sensible,” he said at a press conference this week. “I guess it’s commercial.”

The UK Government‘s Department of Culture, Media and Sport referred NBC News to UEFA when asked to comment on the criticism. In a statement emailed, it pointed out the “strict entry requirements” for all fans attending games in the UK, requiring all participants to provide proof of vaccination or a negative test result.

UEFA says it is up to the host countries how many fans they allow. This is based on factors “including the local launch of vaccinations, their plans to reopen the economy and the expected slowdown in the virus due to warmer temperatures,” its website said.

The Euro 2020 medical advisor, Dr. Daniel Koch said in a statement emailed that “gatherings could ultimately lead to a local spike in case numbers,” but said that so did many other “situations that are now under the easing” of pandemic restrictions.

He said “intensive vaccination campaigns” would help “prevent a new big wave from starting in Europe and putting the respective health systems under pressure, as was the case with previous waves of infections”.

It’s true that most of the Euro 2020-related infections have occurred in men between the ages of 20 and 40, who are less likely to get the disease than older people. But experts fear that even with vaccinations, a wave of infections will ultimately lead to a certain increase in serious illnesses, deaths and so-called long-distance runners with months of symptoms.

That review comes weeks before the Tokyo Olympics opening ceremony on July 23. In response to months of criticism and opposition to the event, the organizers are applying strict rules about where athletes and other guests can go and what they can do. International fans are completely banned.

Still, Japan’s government advisors predict that infections are likely to increase during the Games.

Such strict measures are rarely or not at all used at Euro 2020, which, unlike previous tournaments, will not be held in one country but in 11 cities across the continent.

In the Russian city of St. Petersburg, according to the UEFA website, 30,500 fans – or 50 percent of the stadium – can only access with a temperature control. This would miss asymptomatic or early cases of the virus. Meanwhile, deaths in Russia are currently soaring to the pandemic peak, and only around 12 percent of the people there are fully vaccinated.

Finland has contained Covid-19 relatively well so far. But it suffered a “spike” of almost 400 Covid-19 cases “due to the return of football fans from Russia,” the Ministry of Health said in a statement on Thursday.

Over the next 10 days, tens of thousands of fans will take part in the quarter-finals, semi-finals and finals of Euro 2020, which will be played in the Azerbaijani capital Baku, St. Petersburg, Rome, Munich and London.

Switzerland is one of the remnants of the competition, playing against Spain in St. Petersburg on Friday.

“Things are exploding with the Delta variant,” said Swiss Health Minister Alain Berset at a press conference this week, according to a translation by Reuters. “Without a vaccination I would not go – I would not. And if you are vaccinated you can go. But there are several risks involved. You have to be careful.”