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(CNN) – Europe’s whack-a-mole strategy of imposing local closures to crush the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic did not work. Now is the time to bring out the heavy weapons.
Germany and France announced new four-week national closures on Wednesday night. They followed the Czech Republic and Ireland, which established nationwide restrictions earlier this month. Spain and the UK could be next.
French President Emmanuel Macron said local measures imposed in several major cities, including Paris, in recent weeks “no longer work” and that a national lockdown was needed. Under the new rules, people will only be able to leave their homes to go to work or school, for a medical appointment, to care for a family member, to do essential shopping and to exercise. Non-essential businesses, restaurants and bars will be closed. As in the spring, they will need a certificate to venture abroad.
Macron’s speech came just hours after Germany also renounced local lockdowns, announcing a stay-at-home order nationwide starting next Monday after regional restrictions in major cities including Frankfurt, Berlin and Stuttgart, and a partial blockade in the state of Bavaria did not slow down. reduce the spread of the virus.
Chancellor Angela Merkel said people residing in Germany are advised to stay home, avoid traveling and “keep their contacts to a minimum.” Social contacts will be limited to two households in public.
Professor Igor Rudan, Deputy Director of the Center for Global Health and the Collaborating Center of the World Health Organization at the University of Edinburgh, said that the measures implemented over the past two months in most of Europe were “clearly insufficient” to prevent rapid spread. of the virus.
The decision by France and Germany is an acknowledgment that their attempts to control the outbreaks through local measures have failed. However, some European countries are still resisting national lockdowns, despite their increasing number of cases.
Scientists at Imperial College London warned on Thursday that the UK government’s current three-tier approach to the epidemic is not working. They found that the number of positive cases in England was doubling every nine days and warned that stricter measures must be put in place to curb the spread of the disease.
Based on their analysis of 85,971 random swabs, the Imperial College team estimated that around 96,000 people are currently infected in England every day, roughly five times more than the official daily case counts at this time.
“We are seeing a nationwide increase in the prevalence of infections, which we know will lead to more hospitalizations and loss of life,” said Professor Paul Elliott, study leader, in a news release. “Now more than ever we must all work together to stop the further spread of the virus and avoid the subsequent overwhelming health service,” he added.
The UK government has so far resisted a new national blockade. Speaking to the BBC on Thursday, British Housing Minister Robert Jenrick said a nationwide lockdown is not “inevitable”, adding that the government favors “taking action where the virus is most concentrated and avoiding some of the stocks seen in continental Europe. ” . “
Rudan said there were probably many reasons why the measures did not prevent large new outbreaks. “Viruses have complex transmission dynamics. For the new coronavirus, it has been shown to be highly dependent on behavior and movement of people,” he told CNN in an email. “However, it may also be affected by factors that we do not fully understand and cannot easily control.”
So, Rudan said, measures that may have worked well to keep the epidemic under control at one point may require strengthening at another to prevent the outbreak from growing exponentially.
The new measures are being implemented in many European countries despite a growing number of protests against the blockade across the continent. Italy, Germany, the Czech Republic and the United Kingdom have witnessed demonstrations, some violent, in recent weeks.
The fact that some people feel unhappy and fatigued could be another reason why local closures in Europe failed. Scientists have said from the start that for localized strategy to work, everyone must do their bit. Health authorities must be able to intervene quickly and people must respect closures and take the risk seriously.
That was something Merkel underlined after announcing the new German blockade measures. “Lies and misinformation, conspiracy and hatred damage not only the democratic debate, but also the fight against the virus,” he said Thursday.
This story was first published on CNN.com “Europe tried a scalpel in the second wave. Now back to the deck.”
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