Vaccinated, cured, or dead: those are the three likely paths ahead for Germans, according to the country's Health Minister, as it prepares to plunge into pandemic winter.

Many European countries are currently in the grips of a brutal fourth wave of COVID-19.

It's so bad that Austria has just gone back into lockdown in an attempt to spare the country's already overwhelmed ICUs.

Only two thirds of Europeans have been fully vaccinated so far, and many of those people are at a point now where their immunity is starting to fade.

It's a pattern that's making health officials worried about what the next few months have in store.

Today on the Signal, Europe's backsliding COVID situation. Is it a sign of things to come for Australia?

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Eva Schernhammer, Professor of Epidemiology, Medical University of Vienna