Europe on the brink
PARIS/PRAGUE: France imposed curfews while other European nations are closing schools, cancelling surgeries and enlisting student medics as overwhelmed authorities face the nightmare scenario of a Covid19 resurgence at the onset of winter.
With new cases hitting about 100,000 daily, Europe has by a wide margin overtaken the United States, where more than 51,000 Covid19 infections are reported on average every day.
As cases in France climbed rapidly, President Emmanuel Macron announced night curfews for four weeks from Saturday (local time) in Paris and other major cities, affecting almost onethird of the country’s 67 million people.
Macron said the curfews were to halt temporarily ‘‘the parties, the moments of conviviality where there are 50 or 60 people, festive evenings because, unfortunately, these are vectors for the acceleration of the disease’’.
Most European governments eased lockdowns over the summer to revive their economies. However, the return of normal activity fuelled a sharp spike in cases all over the continent.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she and leaders of Germany’s 16 states agreed yesterday on tougher measures without detailing them.
Bars and pubs were among the first to shut or face earlier closing in the new lockdowns, but now the surging infection rates are also testing governments’ resolve to keep schools and nonCovid19 medical care going.
The Czech Republic, with Europe’s worst rate per capita, has shifted schools to distance learning and plans to call up thousands of medical students. Hospitals are cutting nonurgent procedures to free up beds. Poland is ramping up training for nurses and considering creating military field hospitals, Moscow is to move many students to online learning and Northern Ireland is closing schools for two weeks and restaurants for four.
Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin described Northern Ireland’s rise in cases as ‘‘hugely worrying’’, and the Government increased restrictions in three counties on the border as well as almost all visits to homes across the country.
‘‘We are on the brink of disaster,’’ immunologist Pawel Grzesiowski said in Poland, which reported a record 6526 infections and 116 deaths yesterday.
Germany, England and France have so far resisted pressure to close schools, but in Germany, politicians are debating whether to extend the ChristmasNew Year school break.
The Netherlands returned to partial lockdown, closing bars and restaurants, but kept schools open.
The United Kingdom, France, Russia and Spain accounted for more than half of Europe’s new cases in the week to October 11, according to the World Health Organisation.
In Belgium, with Europe’s second worst infection rate per capita, hospitals must now reserve a quarter of their beds for Covid19 patients.