San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Mask controls tighten across EU countries
To mask or not to mask is a question Italy settled early in the COVID-19 outbreak with an emphatic “yes.” Now the onetime epicenter of the pandemic in Europe hopes even stricter mask rules will help it beat the latest infection surge.
Other countries are taking similar action as the more transmissible — yet, apparently, less virulent — omicron variant spreads through the continent.
With intensive care units in Italy’s hospitals rapidly filling with mostly unvaccinated COVID-19 patients, the government announced on Christmas Eve that FFP2 masks — which offer users more protection than cloth or surgical masks — must be worn on public transit, including planes, trains, ferries and subways. Now, FFP2s also must be worn at theaters and sports events, indoors or out, and can’t be removed even for their wearers to eat or drink.
Spain reinstated its outdoor mask rule on Christmas Eve. Portugal brought masks back at the end of November. And Greece has also restored its outdoor mask mandate, while requiring an FFP2 or double surgical mask on public transport and in indoor public spaces.
In France, the outdoor mask mandate was partially reinstated in December in many cities, including Paris. Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer announced last week that people must wear FFP2 masks outdoors if they can’t keep at least 6.5 feet apart.
CHINA Race to halt outbreaks
China further stiffened its anti-pandemic measures in Beijing and across the country as scattered outbreaks continued ahead of the opening of the Winter Olympics in a little over two weeks.
Beijing has ordered children at international schools to be tested starting this week and is barring air passengers who transited via a third point. Citizens are being told only to travel if absolutely necessary, with no guarantee they will be permitted to return if found to have visited a city or region where an outbreak occurred.
The city of Tianjin, about an hour from the capital, ordered a third round of mass testing starting Saturday morning. A port and manufacturing center with 14 million people, Tianjin is one of a half dozen cities where the government is imposing lockdowns and other restrictions as part of a policy to track down every virus case. It’s proximity to Beijing is particularly worrying and authorities have cut off all travel links between it and the Olympic host city following the discovery of 126 cases in recent days, all apparently of the highly contagious omicron variant.
Elsewhere, more than 20 million people are under lockdown, many restricted to their homes amid concerns over supplies of food and other daily necessities. Factories have been closed, affecting supplies of computer chips and other products.
RUSSIA Nation shelves virus controls
The Russian government chose to delay adopting unpopular legislation restricting access to public places for the unvaccinated, despite an infection surge and warnings from top officials about the spread of the omicron variant.
Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova said the legislation was postponed due to the “high uncertainty” as the draft bill was originally prepared in response to the delta variant but “new challenges” have arisen.
The bill required Russians seeking to access certain public places to have a QR code either confirming vaccination, recent recovery from COVID-19, or a medical exemption from immunization.
The initiative, along with another bill proposing a similar system for both domestic and international planes and trains, was met with high resistance amid a largely vaccine-skeptical population.
The QR code requirements are already in place in some parts of Russia and vary on a region-to-region basis. They are mostly used for travel, and to access public spaces like museums and theaters.
NETHERLANDS Free tulips lift Dutch spirits
As stores in Amsterdam and across the Netherlands cautiously reopened after weeks of being under a coronavirus lockdown, the Dutch capital’s mood was lightened further Saturday by dashes of color from thousands of free bunches of tulips.
National Tulip Day is usually marked by an improvised flower garden in front of the royal palace on the capital’s central Dam Square. But with pandemic lockdown measures continuing to restrict large public gatherings, organizers this year took to Amsterdam’s World Heritage-listed canals to hand out their flowers.
The event is held each year to celebrate the start of the growing season for the iconic flowers, a major export for Dutch farmers.
“It is a gloomy and uncertain time for many people with the ongoing pandemic,” said Arjan Smit, chairman of Tulip Promotion Netherlands, an association of Dutch growers. “So we’re going to provide some joy. We hope to create many happy faces by handing out tulip bouquets.”