Threat of lethal autumn in Europe as Covid-19 returns in older population

As vacations and parties fed a late-summer surge of Covid-19 in Europe, there’s been one reassuring constant: a lower death toll. The latest numbers out of the continent’s hardest-hit countries show the relief may only be temporary.

The virus has started spreading in older populations again, according to data from France, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands and the U.K. In France, its prevalence among those aged 75 or over more than doubled in the past three weeks.

The shift could be a tipping point as Europe faces another wave of the virus. Rising cases among the elderly, more reports of nursing-home