Poland, France and Ukraine have imposed partial closures as they fight rising coronavirus infections.
Residents in Poland, parts of France, including Paris and the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, faced new restrictions on Saturday, with most shops closed and people being encouraged to work from home.
The introduction of new curbs comes because the pace of vaccination of the European Union remains slow and several member states are facing a third wave of the virus.
In France, the government has introduced new measures following a jump in COVID-19 cases in Paris and other parts of northern France.
Under the new measures, non-essential businesses were closed in Paris, while schools remained open and outdoor exercise was allowed up to ten kilometers from home.
As in previous exclusions, a form is needed to justify why someone has left home under the new restrictions.
President Emmanuel Macron on Friday insisted that the word “closure” was not appropriate to describe the government’s strategy.
“What we want is to inhibit the virus without including us. It is not locked, ‘he said during a meeting at the Elysee Palace. “Strictly speaking, the term lockdown is not right,” he added.
The government argues the measures are needed to ease the pressure on intensive care units that are almost overflowing.
Stacked tables are seen on the terrace of a closed restaurant in Nice as France’s 16 departments hit the hardest sit down for a third time to slow the rate of coronavirus disease. [Eric Gaillard/Reuters]Third golf
Al Jazeera’s Natacha Butler report from Paris said that although these measures are more flexible than the previous one, the government has insisted that it is important to follow them.
‘They call on employers to ensure that as many staff as possible work from home … the government says … that parts of the country are in a third wave.
‘COVID infections have increased in the last few weeks, almost 40,000 a day for the last few days, it is definitely much higher than ten days ago when it was about 20,000 a day.
“And in Paris, doctors say the intensive care units are almost saturated. Some hospitals in the city had to fly their patients out of the city to hospitals in different regions of France,” Butler said.
Meanwhile, business in Germany is rising at a “very clear exponential rate”, a top health institute said on Friday, and many expect new fights over work and social life to be introduced in the coming days.
The Robert Koch Institute reported 17,482 new infections in the preceding 24 hours and 226 deaths in Germany, with the seven-day incidence of 96 per 100,000 people, despite a month-long closure of large parts of public life.
German leaders agreed earlier this month to impose new restrictions in regions where the seven-day incidence rate is more than 100.
“We are in the third wave of the pandemic, the numbers are rising, the percentage of virus mutations is high,” Health Minister Jens Spahn told a news conference.
Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Friday that Germany should not hesitate to impose emergency measures and, if necessary, return to a hard-fought closure.
A woman with flowers on her head attends a protest against coronavirus (COVID-19) disease in Kassel, Germany [Thilo Schmuelgen/Reuters]
Frustrations with COVID-19 curbs flooded on Saturday, with quarrels erupting during a major protest against the restrictions in the German city of Kassel, and thousands took part in a similar demonstration in Liestal, Switzerland.
‘End the shutdown’ and ‘Corona rebels’, read signs held by protesters during the protest in Kassel, organized by a group of activists from both the far left and the far right as well as the anti-waxxers and conspiracy theorists .
“I think that Europe and many other countries around the world, or at least the population, are seeing that they are going up in an endless cycle of epidemics, and that epidemics are decreasing, and that the cycle is accompanied by closures and subsequent relaxation, “Marc said. Van Ranst, a professor at the University of Leuven and the Rega Institute for Medical Research, said.
“It puts a lot of pressure on the population to keep morale high, it’s not easy … and I think the vaccination program is the only solution to stop the endless cycle,” he added.
Worldwide, COVID-19 killed 2.7 million people while recovering more than 69 million, according to data released by Johns Hopkins University.