Lockdowns start easing worldwide
BEIJING (AFP) — Children in China’s two most important cities went back to school yesterday after more than three months at home, as coronavirus restrictions eased and governments around the world began charting a path out of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic lockdown.
Europe’s four worst-affected countries all reported marked drops in their daily death tolls, offering hope that the outbreak may have peaked in some places – at least for now.
Leaders and experts remain divided, however, on how quickly to revive shuttered economies while maintaining a delicate balance between freedom and safety.
Italy and New York laid out partial reopening plans, with France and Spain to follow suit this week, while tens of thousands of final-year students returned to school in Shanghai and Beijing after months of closures.
“I’m glad, it’s been too long since I’ve seen my classmates,” 18-year-old Hang Huan said in Shanghai. “I’ve missed them a lot.”
Students in Beijing must have their temperatures checked at school gates and show “green” health codes on an app that calculates a person’s infection risk, according to the education ministry.
Virus numbers in China, where the disease first emerged late last year, have dwindled as the country begins to cautiously lift control measures, although fears remain of a potential resurgence and cases imported from abroad.
Primary schools in Norway also reopened yesterday, along with some businesses in Switzerland, such as those of hairdressers and florists, while New Zealand prepared to begin its phased exit from lockdown in the evening.
“There is no widespread, undetected community transmission in New Zealand,” Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern declared. “We have won that battle.”
In an Oslo suburb, Karine Rabbe brought her seven-yearold daughter Tilde to school in the rain after six weeks of online teaching.
“She was ready at six o’clock this morning, three hours early. She was so excited to go back. No alarm clock, we don’t need that,” Rabbe said.
More than 205,000 COVID-19 deaths have been confirmed across the globe, over a quarter of which come from the United States.
Italy has the second highest death toll at 26,000, followed by Spain, France and Britain, all at well over 20,000.
On Sunday, however, Britain’s daily tally was the lowest since March 31, while Italy and Spain’s were the lowest in a month. France’s toll was a drop of more than a third on the previous day’s figures.
Those encouraging numbers blew relief through a continent frustrated by restrictions designed to slow the spread of the disease.