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French President Emmanuel Macron announced that the country will enter a new period of national confinement, although not as restricted as the beginning of the pandemic. after German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced a four-week semi-confinement.
Macron detailed the possible action scenarios and the country’s situation: “There will be 9,000 intensive care beds occupied by patients with COVID-19 in two weeks”; this is the total capacity of these units –, to announce “a new national closure” that begins the night of Thursday to Friday. “Every second counts.”
Still, this confinement is different from the previous one, based on what has already been learned, the French president said. For example, it has been learned that it is important to keep kindergartens and schools open, or to allow home or patient visits for hospice care, “provided the utmost care is taken.” The cemeteries will remain open over the weekend, he said.
But leaving home requires a reason, Macron said. As in the previous confinement, and confirmed by statements. Whether to go from home to work – although teleworking is encouraged whenever possible, he stressed -, to the doctor, shopping or exercise.
Public services and activities like construction will remain open, Macron said, calling on everyone to “support your neighborhood businesses, order meals or help in other ways.”
Although he tries to protect the economy, Macron said he does not see how the economy can be healthy with a virus that overwhelms the health system and causes thousands of deaths, and that doctors in hospitals “have to decide which patient to treat and which patient. ”. let go”.
Macron also said that the situation is not unique to France, arguing that “the virus is spreading at a rate that not even the most pessimistic predictions anticipated.” France recorded 36,437 new cases of infection and 523 deaths on Wednesday (measures will be relaxed when the number of daily infections falls to 5,000, Macron said).
“We lost control,” says Merkel.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, accused of scaremongering when she suggested last month that 19,000 people could be infected every day at Christmas in the country, would agree with Macron’s statement on the most pessimistic predictions, the figure she indicated. . now it seems low, when Germany recorded 14,964 infections, a record, and 85 deaths.
Merkel also announced measures on Wednesday in Germany: the closure of establishments such as bars, restaurants, cafes, gyms, cinemas and live theaters starting Monday, November 2, for four weeks.
“Hard measures” that are an effort not to have to re-enact national lockdown, he said. “It is very clear that we have to act, and now.”
Other restrictions include hotel overnight stays, available only in exceptional cases. Outdoors, you can find a maximum of ten people belonging to no more than two families or households.
Stores may be open if there is only one customer for every ten square meters inside.
The biggest exception to these rules are schools: the main objective is, the chancellor stressed, to keep nurseries and schools open and functioning.
“We are at a point where, on a national average, we no longer know where 75% of infections come from,” Merkel said. What does it mean? “We lost control.” It is no longer possible, in certain places like Berlin, to maintain the contact tracking system, that the Financial times Classified as “Germany’s secret weapon against the virus”.
The country cannot take risks, Merkel continued, with the health system without capacity, which with the current exponential dynamics would happen “in a few weeks.”
In Spain, where on Sunday the Government of Pedro Sánchez approved a state of emergency that involves night curfews and gave the regions more power to decide restrictive measures, additional actions were still being discussed, including the prohibition of traffic between them – Madrid It should be subject to this measure only for the next two weekends, which are extended.
According to the newspaper The countryOther regions, such as Catalonia, are considering measures in addition to the national ones, such as the closure of the restaurant or the suspension of sports activities.
