Leaders warn against Easter travel and gatherings as fresh surges emerge
WORLD leaders and health officials are warning that hard-won gains in the fight against the coronavirus must not be jeopardised by relaxing social distancing over the Easter holidays.
A spike in deaths in the UK and New York and surges of reported new infections in Japan and in India’s congested cities make it clear that the battle is far from over.
“We are flattening the curve because we are rigorous about social distancing,” said New York governor Andrew Cuomo. “But it’s not a time to be complacent. It’s not a time to do anything different than we’ve been doing.”
America has by far the most confirmed cases, with more than 430,000 people infected – three times the number of the next three countries combined.
New York state on Wednesday recorded its highest one-day increase in deaths, 779, for an overall toll of almost 6,300.
New York has more than 40 per cent of the US death total of about 15,000.
Anthony Fauci, America’s top infectious diseases expert, said the Trump administration has been working on plans to eventually reopen the country amid evidence that social distancing is working, but he said it is not time to scale back such measures.
In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel emphasised people should not travel as usual this weekend, saying: “Even short trips inside Germany, to the seaside or the mountains or relatives, can’t happen over Easter this year.”
In New Zealand, police warned people not to drive to their holiday homes over Easter or they would be risking arrest.
“It’s simple – travelling to and from different towns and cities risks spreading Covid-19, and puts lives at risk,” police said.
Lithuania is restricting public movement and imposing a lockdown on major cities over Easter to prevent the further spread of infection in the predominantly Catholic nation.
Greece also tightened restrictions ahead of next week’s Orthodox Easter celebrations, increasing police roadblocks along major routes and secondary roads, doubling fines for lockdown violations and banning travel between islands.
In Switzerland police are seeking to dissuade drivers from heading to the Italian-speaking Ticino region, the only part of Switzerland south of the Alps and one of the worst-hit by the pandemic. Roadblocks were being set up near the northern entrance of the Gotthard tunnel to separate out would-be visitors.
In a potentially worrying development in South Korea, at least 74 people diagnosed as having recovered from coronavirus tested positive for a second time after they were released from hospital.
Health authorities are testing their virus and serum samples to determine whether those patients could again be infectious to others.