As festive season approaches, Europe lifts curbs, US doesn’t
Los Angeles shutters restaurants ahead of Thanksgiving holiday; govts in Europe decide to ease some Covid restrictions ahead of Christmas
LOS ANGELES/ LONDON: A restaurant dining ban in Los Angeles was due to come into force on Wednesday as officials warned Americans to stay home for the Thanksgiving holiday, while parts of Europe eyed looser lockdowns over the festive season.
The three-week order in America’s second-biggest city will begin as California faces record Covid-19 cases, and its health secretary urges people to avoid large family gatherings.
The US government’s health protection agency has for the first time called on Americans not to travel for the annual holiday, which usually sees families get together over turkey, yams and cranberry sauce.
With the US confronted by soaring numbers of deaths and new cases, plans to deliver a vaccine to Americans are accelerating. More than six million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine will be available in the first week after it is cleared for emergency use which is likely next month - and 40mn by the end of December, according to officials.
There were more than 86,000 coronavirus hospitalisations in the US on Tuesday, a record, as well as 167,000 new cases and more than 2,000 deaths.
As America grappled with its crisis, European nations were slowly relaxing measures ahead of their own Christmas holidays, as a second wave of infections slowed following weeks of lockdowns.
In an address late Tuesday, French President Emmanuel Macron announced shops could reopen on Saturday and nationwide stay-at-home orders would be lifted from December 15.
British authorities also announced restrictions on social mixing and travel would be eased across the UK over Christmas.
Elsewhere in Europe, 16 German states agreed to slightly loosen limits on social contact over Christmas even as cases near one million there.
State leaders agreed to cap gatherings to 10 people over the December 23 to January 1 holiday - double the limit for the rest of December.
In Australia, the country’s most populous state, New South Wales, eased social distancing measures and allowed companies to bring employees back to work.
Singapore, which has one of the world’s lowest virus death rates, announced it had no live clusters of Covid-19 cases in the country - the first time since its outbreak began earlier this year, and two weeks without local cases at all.