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WASHINGTON: Bars and restaurants in America’s largest city will close early starting Friday (Nov. 13) as the COVID-19 outbreak escalates in the United States and Europe, where Greece is forced to touch overnight curfew.
It comes as the US, already the worst-affected country in the world, experiences its third and worst increase in infections, with much of Europe shutting down again to tackle the disease.
New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo has announced that all establishments licensed to sell alcohol, including bars and restaurants, must close by 10 p.m.
Greece also launches new restrictions, beginning a nightly curfew on Friday after its leader said the country had been overwhelmed by a “tsunami” of infections.
New York was the first epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States, but hotspots have appeared across the country since then, leaving virtually no region of the United States unaffected.
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Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot asked the city’s 2.7 million people in the Midwest to go out only for essential tasks or to attend work or school, to scrap Thanksgiving plans, and to avoid travel. . (Photo: AFP / Kamil Krzaczynski)
On Thursday, America’s third-largest city, Chicago, issued a new stay-at-home warning, and the mayor asked its 2.7 million residents to scrap Thanksgiving plans and avoid travel.
“Each and every one of us must step up and ‘Protect Chicago’ right now, or 2020 could go from bad to worse,” read a note on the city’s website.
More than 1,000 people die every day from COVID-19 in the US, according to data from the COVID Tracking Project.
In besieged North Dakota, the governor has authorized COVID-19-positive doctors with no symptoms to continue working in virus rooms.
The world got a much-needed dose of hope this week when US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech said their vaccine was 90 percent effective.
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US government chief scientist Anthony Fauci welcomed the news Thursday, saying “cavalry” was on the way, but warned people not to allow masking, distancing, and other measures to take place. escape.
Speaking to a London think tank via video link, the world’s leading infectious disease expert said another vaccine is “literally about to be announced,” a comment widely interpreted as one developed by the American biotech firm Moderna.
But the vaccines will not arrive in time to prevent tens of thousands more deaths.
“EXTREMELY CRITICAL”
In Greece, the number of daily cases has doubled in the last two weeks to almost 3,000 and the government faces accusations of “criminal negligence” by the opposition for its response to the crisis.
“The next few weeks will be extremely critical,” Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis warned Thursday during a heated parliamentary debate.
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Medical workers arrive at a hospital in Naples in an ambulance with a patient with COVID-19. (Photo: AFP / Filippo Monteforte)
Greeks can no longer travel without the authorization sent by SMS, and the government has made some progress with the imposition since Friday of a night curfew between 9:00 p.m. and 5:00 a.m.
Greece has seen 909 deaths and 63,000 infections among its population of 10.9 million, the vast majority in the past four months.
Particularly affected is Thessaloniki, the second largest city in the country, where 32% of people have tested positive.
Former Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, head of Syriza, the main left-wing opposition party, accused the government of taking too lax an approach to tourist arrivals, but Mitsotakis blamed a laid-back attitude on social distancing and the wearing of masks among Young.
“Some have undermined the health of the majority,” he said.
SANTA EXEMPTION
In other parts of Europe, the Slovenian government announced the suspension of public transport and a ban on almost all public gatherings and gatherings for the next two weeks.
And Portugal’s prime minister said that a nightly curfew that was already in effect in some parts of the country would now cover about 70 percent of the population, as the number of COVID-19 patients treated at the hospital was more. twice the peak observed in the spring.
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A resident of the Domenico Sartor nursing home near Venice hugs her visiting daughter through a plastic screen in the so-called “Hug Room”. (Photo: AFP / Piero Cruciatti)
Meanwhile, Serbian health minister Zlatibor Loncar warned that there were no more hospital beds available for virus patients in the capital Belgrade.
But Italy’s prime minister gave a lighter note amid the gloom, telling the country’s children that Santa Claus would skip the lockdown by traveling the world with special permission.
“Santa Claus assured me that he already has an international travel certificate: he can travel everywhere and distribute gifts to all the children in the world,” wrote Giuseppe Conte on Facebook.
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