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Poland, France, and Ukraine have introduced partial lockdowns as they fight growing coronavirus infections.
Residents in parts of France, including Paris, the Ukrainian capital, Kiev and throughout Poland, woke up to the new restrictions, with most stores closed and people urged to work from home.
The imposition of new restrictions comes as the pace of the European Union’s vaccination launch remains slow and several member states face a third wave of the virus.
In France, the government introduced new measures after an increase in COVID-19 cases in Paris and other parts of northern France.
Under the new measures, non-essential businesses in Paris are closed, while schools remain open and outdoor exercise is allowed up to 10 kilometers (six miles) from home.
As with previous locks, a form will be needed to justify why a person has left their home in areas under the new restrictions.
President Emmanuel Macron insisted on Friday that the word “blockade” was not appropriate to describe the government’s strategy.
“What we want is to stop the virus without locking ourselves up. This is not being blocked, ”he said at a meeting at the Elysee Palace. “Strictly speaking, the term blockade is not correct,” he added.
Tables are seen stacked on the terrace of a closed restaurant in Nice, as the 16 worst-affected departments in France will enter a third blockade imposed to lower the rate of the coronavirus disease. [Eric Gaillard/Reuters]
Al Jazeera’s Natacha Butler report from Paris said that although these measures are more flexible than previous ones, the government has insisted that it is important to follow them.
“They are asking employers to ensure that as many employees as possible work from home… the government says… parts of the country are firmly in a third wave.
“COVID infections have increased in the last few weeks, almost 40,000 a day in the last few days, that’s certainly much higher than 10 days ago, when it was around 20,000 a day.
“And in Paris, the doctors say that the intensive care units are almost saturated, in fact, some hospitals in the city had to transfer their patients out of the city to hospitals in different regions of France,” Butler said.
Meanwhile, in Germany, cases are increasing at a “clearly exponential rate,” a major public health institute said on Friday, with many expecting new restrictions on work and social life to be introduced in the coming days.
The Robert Koch Institute reported 17,482 new infections in the previous 24 hours and 226 deaths in Germany, with a seven-day incidence rate rising to 96 per 100,000 people despite a months-long shutdown of large swaths of public life. .
German leaders agreed earlier this month to impose new restrictions in regions where the seven-day incidence rate exceeded 100.
“We are in the third wave of the pandemic, the numbers are increasing, the percentage of mutations of the virus is high,” Health Minister Jens Spahn said at a press conference.
Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Friday that Germany should not hesitate to introduce emergency measures and return to a strict lockdown if necessary.
A woman with flowers on her head attends a protest against government restrictions against coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Kassel, Germany [Thilo Schmuelgen/Reuters]
Frustration with COVID-19 curbs spilled over Saturday, with skirmishes at a large protest against the restrictions in the German city of Kassel, and thousands of people joined a similar rally in Liestal, Switzerland.
“End the lockdown” and “Corona rebels” read the signs held by protesters at the protest in Kassel, which was organized by a group that has attracted far-left and far-right activists, as well as anti-vaccines and conspiracy theorists.
“I believe that Europe and many other countries in the world are, or at least the population perceives, that they are in an endless cycle of epidemics that increase and epidemics decrease, and that cycle is accompanied by subsequent blockages and relaxations”, Marc Van Ranst, Professor at the University of Leuven and the Rega Institute for Medical Research, he said.
“That puts a lot of pressure on the population to keep morale high, it’s not easy … and I think the only solution to stop this endless cycle is going to be the vaccination program,” he added.
Globally, COVID-19 has killed 2.7 million people, while more than 69 million have recovered according to data published by Johns Hopkins University.
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