Restrictions spreading out across all of Europe
ANEW round of restrictions and border closures was announced in Europe and beyond yesterday as public life and travel increasingly ground to a halt amid efforts to keep people apart and slow the spread of the new coronavirus.
Spain awoke to the first day of a nationwide quarantine, while Austria’s chancellor, Sebastian Kurz, said his government was limiting people’s movement nationwide.
This came shortly after the country’s Tyrol province followed Italy and Spain, barring people from leaving their homes except for essential errands and work.
Austria has confirmed 800 infections, with Mr Kurz saying – other than for essential errands – people should go out “only alone or with the people with whom (they) live in their apartment”.
Neighbouring Slovenia said it would shut down all public transport starting today and planned to shut all but food shops and pharmacies.
Estonia and Latvia confirmed they would close their borders to foreign nationals, except residents, from tomorrow. Turkey has put aside quarantine beds for more than 10,000 people returning from pilgrimage to Islam’s holy sites in Saudi Arabia.
Italy, the worst-hit European country, had a new surge of cases with 24,747 infections and 1,809 deaths, and so wound its nearly week-old lockdown still tighter.
The transport ministry banned passengers from taking ferries to the island of Sardinia, and also banned overnight train trips, which many in the worst-affected north had been taking to reach homes and families in the south.
Spain joined Italy on lockdown after the government declared a two-week state of emergency.
Deaths from the coronavirus in Spain have more than doubled in 24 hours, the country’s health authorities said, to 228 since the start of the pandemic, up from 136 on Saturday. And the country has recorded 7,753 infections, up from 5,700 on Saturday.
In Barcelona, people who ventured out on quiet streets to buy bread at one bakery formed long lines with a metre (about 3ft) between each person as recommended by authorities to reduce the risk of contagion.
Police patrolled parks and told people who were not taking their dog on a quick walk to go home.
The state of emergency “is necessary to unify our efforts so we can all go in the same direction”, Barcelona mayor Ada Colau said yesterday.
“If we show solidarity and think about one another, we can get through this,” she said.
“Other countries have, and it is in our hands to give our best answer to this huge challenge.”
Spain’s government said on Saturday that prime minister Pedro Sanchez’s wife had tested positive for the coronavirus. Begona Gomez and the prime minister were in good health, the government said.
Nearby Morocco has suspended all flights.
There were tough steps being taken in Southeast Asia too, with soldiers and police sealing the densely populated Philippine capital Manila from most domestic travellers, in one of the region’s most drastic containment measures.
In Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation, President Joko Widodo asked all people to work, study and worship from home.
Travellers scrambling to return to the US after the Trump administration imposed a wide-ranging ban on people entering from Europe faced waits lasting hours for required medical screenings.
Videos and photos posted on social media showed packed, winding lines of returning travellers.
On Twitter, airports like Dallas/ Fort Worth and Chicago O’Hare acknowledged the delays and asked for patience.
In China, where the virus was first detected in December, those arriving on overseas flights were routed to a converted exhibition centre for initial checks before being shuttled off to their homes or other quarantine locations.
The virus has infected more than 156,000 people worldwide and killed more than 5,800.
China, Italy, Iran, South Korea and Spain are the countries with the most cases.
Even as social life has largely been halted – the German capital, Berlin, closed bars, cinemas and other facilities on Saturday evening, for example – some attempts at keeping up public life persist.
France, which has reported 4,500 cases and 91 deaths, went ahead yesterday with nationwide elections to choose mayors and other local leaders despite a crackdown on public gatherings.
The government ordered unprecedented sanitary measures at polling stations. Organisers were under orders to allow a one-metre (about three-foot) gap between people in lines, and to provide soap or hydroalcoholic gel and disinfectant wipes for voting machines. Voters were told to bring their own pens to sign the voting register.
The state of Bavaria in neighbouring Germany, which had reported nearly 3,800 cases and eight deaths nationwide as of Saturday, also went ahead with municipal elections.
With Easter less than a month away, the Vatican said Holy Week religious ceremonies – usually a string of massive public occasions that draw huge numbers of tourists and pilgrims to Rome – will go ahead, but just how had not yet been decided.
In the Middle East, Muslim authorities announced that Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque, Islam’s third-holiest site, would be closed indefinitely due to concerns about the outbreak, with prayers continuing to be held on the sprawling esplanade outside.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s trial on serious corruption charges, which was supposed to begin this week, was postponed for two months because of restrictions on public gatherings.
The US has seen 60 deaths and more than 2,100 cases.
In hard-hit Washington state, officials said the disease is straining the supply of protective gear available to medical providers despite shipments from the federal government.
President Donald Trump tested negative for the new coronavirus, the American leader’s personal physician said on Saturday.