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MILAN: Doctors warn that Europe is at a tipping point as the coronavirus reappears across the continent, including among vulnerable people, and governments try to impose restrictions without blocking entire economies.
With newly confirmed cases hitting records, the Czech Republic has closed schools and is building a field hospital, Poland has limited restaurant hours and closed gyms and schools, and France is planning a 9 p.m. curfew in Paris and other major cities. cities.
In Britain, authorities are closing pubs and bars in areas in the north of the country, while putting limits on socializing in London and other parts of the country.
READ: UK government under pressure from COVID-19 strategy
“This is a serious situation that should not be underestimated. It is serious at the European level, ” Italian Health Minister Roberto Speranza said on Friday (October 16).
Europe is not alone in experiencing a resurgence. In the United States, new cases per day are increasing in 44 states, and deaths per day are increasing in 30.
“If we don’t manage to handle this, we run the risk of getting into a situation that is more difficult to control,” Bertrand Levrat, director of the largest hospital complex in Switzerland, told the Associated Press. “We are really at a tipping point, things can go both ways.”
But while officials are sounding the alarm about the increase in cases, they are also wary of imposing the tighter national lockdowns that devastated their economies this spring. Instead, they are testing more specific restrictions.
People gather as they wait to board a tram in Milan, Italy, on Oct. 16, 2020 (Photo: AP / Luca Bruno)
READ: Amid rising COVID-19, WHO urges Europe to step up controls now to save lives
France is deploying an additional 12,000 police to enforce its new curfew; Saturday night will be the first time that the establishments close at 9:00 p.m. Restaurants, cinemas and theaters are trying to figure out how they can survive forced early closures.
Culture Minister Roselyne Bachelot told Le Parisien newspaper that she is negotiating exceptions to a one-month curfew in the Paris region and eight other metropolitan areas.
A chain of cinemas will begin opening at 8 am in hopes of making up for late-night losses. Since restaurants in Paris generally open at 7 pm or 7:30 pm for dinner, some might close completely because it no longer makes financial sense to stay open for such a short shift.
“The world of French culture is not invincible, it needs help,” author and filmmaker Yoann Sfar, who has a new film for sale, said on RTL radio on Friday.
READ: Last night in French cities before coronavirus curfew
Italy, the first country outside of Asia to detect local transmission of the virus, has banned pick-up sports and public gatherings after health officials said the resurgence had reached an “ acute phase ” after a period. of relative grace after its particularly strict lockdown.
Speranza, the health minister, told reporters that any new measure in Italy, including a curfew, must be “well considered.”
Massimo Galli, director of infectious diseases at Milan’s Luigi Sacco hospital, said Italy’s surge, which reached pandemic highs in new daily infections this week, is not the result of record testing, as policy makers have suggested, but rather a sign. of a real return. among the population most at risk of developing severe disease if infected.
That’s a worrying trend, as a tide of severe cases has the potential to flood hospitals, and it’s one that can be seen in other countries on the continent, as many see numbers even higher than in Italy.
People wearing masks walk the streets of Bayonne, southwestern France, on Oct. 16, 2020 (Photo: AP / Bob Edme)
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France, Spain and Great Britain registered more than 300 infections per 100,000 inhabitants during the last two weeks, compared with the acceleration in Italy, but relatively low 106.
The Czech Republic reported that there are more than 700 infected people per 100,000 and the country’s military will start building a field hospital at the Prague exhibition center this weekend, a reminder of the dark days of spring when many countries they installed makeshift facilities to ease the pressure on the overwhelmed doctors. centers.
The government is also negotiating with neighboring Germany and some other countries for Czechs to be treated there if the health system cannot handle them.
In Italy, Milan is the epicenter of the resurgence, and it is also seeing its hospitals come under stress. Sacco’s COVID-19 pavilion was the first in the city to start filling up.
“We have a situation that is quite reminiscent of what we have already experienced,” Galli told the Associated Press, referring to the peak in March and April when Italy reached its record of 969 deaths in one day. The country recorded 83 deaths on Thursday, double that of previous days, but well below previous levels.
READ: October, November will be ‘tougher’ with more deaths from coronavirus: WHO Europe
A teacher sorts drawings in an empty classroom at a closed school in Prague, Czech Republic, October 14, 2020 (Photo: AP / Petr David Josek)
Already in Milan, Galli said the number of elderly patients or those with other risk factors is growing, indicating that the virus has moved beyond its initial expansion in late September, when most cases they were mild or asymptomatic detected by detection and contact tracing.
Since then, mingling between families, within companies and among students outside of school has fueled the spread to the most vulnerable, he said, renewing pressure on Milan hospitals.
“The trend is already there, and it’s frankly alarming,” he said, although he noted that not all of Italy was experiencing a surge.
But that, he said, could only be a matter of time. Galli said Italy “will follow in the footsteps” of its European neighbors unless the transmission chain is blocked in the next two weeks.
Galli fears that new nationwide restrictions adopted in the past two weeks, including mandatory outdoor masks, a ban on picking up sports games between friends and restaurant closings at midnight, will not be enough.
He urged that more restrictions be imposed on public transport and leisure activities if the authorities want to avoid another blockade, bad for both the economy and the social fabric.
While Italy’s lockdown in the spring gave him more time, Galli said the current resurgence shows “how quickly there is a risk of wasting the results of even a very decisive and important intervention.”
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