Europe warned COVID spreading more quickly

Pandemic patients occupy more than half of France’s ICU beds

PARIS – The coronavirus is spreading even faster than it did during the first phase of the pandemic, a French government adviser said on Friday as authorities across Europe scrambled to try to contain the disease once again racing through the continent.

France has been one of the countries hardest hit in the second wave and has imposed curfews across much of the nation.

COVID patients occupy nearly half of all of France’s 5,000 intensive care beds and its well-regarded health system has been showing increasing signs of strain.

“The virus is circulating more quickly than in the spring,” epidemiologist Arnaud Fontanet, who sits on the Scientific Council advising the French government, said.

The disease is in resurgence all over Europe, where daily reported cases have more than doubled in 10 days, crossing 200,000 daily infections for the first time on Thursday, according to a Reuters tally.

“We are all afraid,” said Maria, a 73-year old pensioner in Dolny Kubin, Slovakia, where officials were piloting a testing scheme the government plans to roll-out across the whole country of 5.5 million. “I see what’s happening and it is terrifying.”

Around the continent, further restrictions are being planned by governments desperate to avoid a repeat of the blanket lockdowns that brought a measure of control in March and April at the cost of shutting down their whole economies.

Belgium, one of the worsthit countries, whose foreign minister Sophie Wilmes went into intensive care this week, tightened restrictions on social contacts on Friday and banned fans from sports matches.