Europe easing itself into the new normal
PLASTIC barriers and face masks appeared on the streets of Europe’s newly reopened cities, as France and Belgium emerged from lockdowns, the Netherlands sent children back to school and Greece and Spain further eased restrictions.
All faced a delicate balance of trying to restart battered economies without fuelling a second wave of coronavirus infections.
Social distancing was the order of the day but just how to do that on public transport and in schools was the big question.
With yesterday’s partial reopening, the French did not have to carry forms allowing them to leave their homes but crowds quickly developed at some metro stations in Paris, one of France’s viral hotspots.
A last-minute legal challenge emerged to the government’s practice of confining people to their own regions, further confusing the postlockdown landscape.
Antoinette van Zalinge, principal of the De Notenkraker elementary school in Amsterdam, wore a wide white skirt and a hula hoop slung from her shoulders and carried a long stick with a hand at one end so she could shake hands with students while still keeping 1.5 metres (5ft) apart.
In Paris, hairdressers practised their new workflow over the weekend ahead of yesterday’s reopening, and planned to charge a “participation fee” for the new disposable protective gear they will need for each customer. Walk-in customers will be a thing of the past, said Brigitte L’Hoste, manager of the Hair de Beaute salon, who expects the number of appointments to be cut in half.
“The face of beauty will change, meaning clients won’t come here to relax. Clients will come because they need to,” said Aurelie Bollini, a beautician at the salon. “They will come and aim at getting the maximum done in the shortest time.”
Roughly half of Spain’s 47 million people stepped into a softer version of the country’s confinement, beginning to socialise, shop in small stores and enjoy outdoor seating in restaurants and bars. Its biggest cities of Madrid and Barcelona remained under lockdown, however.
Fears about new waves of infection have been borne out in Germany, where a new cluster was linked to a slaughterhouse; in Wuhan, the Chinese city where the virus started; and in South Korea, where a single nightclub customer was linked to 85 new infections.
The South Korean government pushed back hard against that wave, halting the school reopenings that had been planned for this week and reimposing restrictions on nightclubs and bars.
It is now trying to track 5,500 people who had visited a popular Seoul entertainment district by checking credit card transactions, mobile phone records and security camera footage.