Six-year-olds told to wear masks under France’s draconian curbs

CHILDREN aged six and over in France will have to wear face masks at school under new rules rolled out as part of the country’s second lockdown that begins today.

Only children over 11 have had to wear masks in school until now. Jean Castex, the prime minister, announced the draconian measure before the national assembly backed a month of further restrictions that include limitations on movement.

Figures published by the World Health Organisation showed France and the rest of Europe accounted for close to half of the 2.8 million global infections in the past week and a third of the 40,000 deaths.

As nations continued to restore many restrictions, Spain extended a state of emergency for another six months, while its Catalonia region said it would seal its borders for 15 days.

In Germany, Angela Merkel warned a rancorous Bundestag that the country faced a “dramatic situation” as it hit a daily record of 16,744 Covid-19 cases.

The chancellor was heckled as she denounced far-right “lies and disinformation” about the pandemic, and told the country to brace itself for a long, hard winter enduring a second wave of coronavirus.

Mrs Merkel made the plea for political unity the day after she announced Germany’s bars and restaurants would close.

Horst Seehofer, the interior minister, later said that Germany would deploy the federal police to enforce the toughened restrictions from Monday. “Running checks will be crucial to ensure the success of the new measures,” he said.

Sweden, meanwhile, which avoided lockdown in the first wave, registered a third record number of cases in a matter of days. The health agency responded by tightening voluntary local restrictions in Stockholm and Gothenburg, urging people to avoid shops and gyms.

Nations around the world continued to pass their own grim new markers. Mexico’s official death toll topped 90,000 with another 495 fatalities, though the health ministry said the true toll may be 50,000 higher.

Argentina passed 30,000 deaths, despite faring well early in the pandemic. India’s coronavirus caseload surpassed 8 million as health officials warned that mask and social distancing fatigue was allowing the virus to take off again.

Pakistan authorities imposed a 10pm curfew on shopping centres, restaurants and markets and masks were made compulsory in public spaces in the capital, Islamabad.

Long lines formed at supermarkets and pharmacies in Sri Lanka after a three-day curfew was announced.

Covid-19 was also confirmed in what had been one of the few coronavirusfree countries left on earth, after authorities on the remote Marshall Islands confirmed that two people visiting the Pacific island chain had tested positive.

The unnamed 35-year-old woman and 46-year-old man were workers at a US military base on Kwajalein Atoll and arrived on the same flight from Hawaii earlier this week.

Authorities stressed the infections were “border cases” and the pair were being held in strict quarantine without having had any contact with locals.