European lockdown is eased but few dare to venture out
Patrick Sawer
LIKE thousands of people that have borne the brunt of the coronavirus pandemic, Roberto Gonzalez took his first tentative steps towards normality last week.
But, like many, he wasn’t altogether sure that he really wanted to face it.
Mr Gonzalez is a construction worker, one of the essential sectors in Spain that was allowed to reopen following a plateauing of the country’s daily toll of deaths from Covid-19.
So, too, in Italy — which has suffered the highest number of casualties outside the United States — where, along with Denmark and Austria, a slow easing of lockdown restrictions is starting to take place.
However, there appears to be a marked reluctance to resume the life lived before social distancing forced millions to adopt a very different way of interacting with others.
“I don’t think it’s the time to go back to work — it’s still very risky,” said Mr Gonzalez, who returned to his construction site in Segovia last Tuesday.
In Italy, easing of lockdown rules has been so tentative that the behaviour of Italians has barely changed.
Since last Tuesday, bookshops and those selling clothing for babies and children have been allowed to reopen. Even then, some of Italy’s 20 regions chose not to adhere to it, decreeing that those businesses should stay shut because of the danger of a renewed spike in cases.
Those regions include Piedmont in the north and neighbouring Lombardy, which accounts for more than half of the 22,745 people who have died from the virus in the country.
Even the few shops that reopened had barely any customers. “Nobody has come in today at all,” said the owner of Le Petit Bateau children’s clothes shop in Rome. “We’re asking ourselves what is the point.”
Stefano Attienese, the owner of a stationery shop in the capital, said: “The takings are really small compared to normal, and in the meantime we still have to pay €14,000 a month in rent.”
In Denmark, where schools and day-care centres reopened last Wednesday, fears of a second wave of infections have led to friction between parents and the government.
Although Mette Frederiksen, the prime minister, defended the move to resume teaching up to fifth grade, saying this would allow parents to return to work and “get the economy going again”, many families are keeping their children at home.
“I won’t be sending my children off no matter what,” said Sandra Andersen, the founder of a Facebook group called ‘My child should not be a test rabbit for Covid-19’. The mother of two girls, aged five and nine, Ms Andersen added: “I think a lot of parents are thinking, ‘Why should my little child go outside first?’”
Christian Wejse, a scientist at the department of infectious diseases at Aarhus University, said he understood the concerns “because we’ve spent a month trying to avoid contact”. But he said new infections would present fewer problems among children.
The children have to play in small groups of three to five, sit two metres apart and wash their hands at least every two hours. Austria became one of the first countries in Europe to lift its lockdown last week and allow shops to open again, but few seemed ready to venture out.
Once-busy shopping streets were deserted, although DIY stores saw long queues. Textile shops also saw brisk trade, with many buying fabric to sew homemade face masks, which are compulsory under Austria’s new rules, alongside strict social distancing.
But many businesses complained it was costing them more to open, and many said they were opening only out of solidarity with their staff rather than in the hope of making any profit.