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Italian protesters staged Europe’s last public rally against the new coronavirus restrictions early Sunday morning as more countries tightened social distancing rules over the weekend to combat rising infections.
The World Health Organization warned of an “exponential” increase in infections that threatens the ability of health systems to cope with a second wave of the pandemic, testing many nations that appeared to have the virus under control earlier this year. year.
Governments are now scrambling to balance the new restrictions with the need to revive economies already hit by previous draconian lockdowns after the virus first emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan late last year.
But populations tired of social isolation and economic difficulties have bristled at the new restrictions.
Some 200 masked far-right militants clashed with Italian riot police during a demonstration against a new curfew in Rome shortly after midnight Sunday, throwing flares and firecrackers at officers.
Seven protesters were arrested during the rally, which occurred the night after hundreds of people set fire to garbage containers and threw projectiles at police further south in Naples in another protest against the curfew.
Italy is recovering from its worst postwar recession after a two-month national lockdown triggered by one of Europe’s worst outbreaks, and authorities have so far tried to avoid re-imposing more drastic quarantine restrictions.
The latest protests cap a week of similar demonstrations against government restrictions in various parts of Europe, including Spain, Switzerland and the Czech Republic.
The continent has seen an increase in new infections and has adopted a number of new containment measures, mostly trying to avoid new lockdowns at the national level, from night curfews to more restrictions on social gatherings.
After Germany recorded its 10,000th death from coronavirus on Saturday, Chancellor Angela Merkel said: “The order of the day is to reduce contacts (and) meet as few people as possible.”
Polish President Andrzej Duda said on Saturday that he had become the latest public figure to test positive for coronavirus, as the EU country faces record rates of infection.
Duda, 48, said in a tweet that he had tested positive but “felt good” and was still at work.
Spain earlier this week became the first European country to officially register one million coronavirus cases since the start of the pandemic.
People across the country were preparing for a state of national emergency, night curfews and other new containment measures.
“They probably should have done this a long time ago or taken other measures, such as restricting the number of people taking public transport or going to work,” Patricia Vázquez, a 22-year-old student, told AFP in the capital, Madrid. .
Colombia became the latest country to record one million confirmed Covid-19 cases on Saturday, as France posted a 24-hour record of more than 45,000 infections a day after surpassing the same milestone.
The French government extended a night curfew to cover areas where around 46 million people live, two out of every three French.
“The difference with the first wave is that now we also have to take care of all the chronic pathologies of the winter period,” emergency doctor Agnes Ricard-Hibon told local television.
On Friday, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned that “too many countries are experiencing an exponential increase in Covid-19 cases and that is now causing hospitals and intensive care units to operate near or above his capacity”.
“We urge leaders to take immediate action to prevent more unnecessary deaths.”
The pandemic has claimed the lives of 1.1 million people and infected more than 42 million worldwide, and the WHO warned that the northern hemisphere was at a particularly critical juncture.
In the US, the virus has become a central issue ahead of next month’s presidential election, with President Donald Trump arguing over his handling of the pandemic with challenger Joe Biden.
“The idea that somehow this White House has done anything but screw this up is bullshit,” said Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama, who came out on the campaign trail Saturday to campaign for Biden, his former MP.
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