Poland, France and Ukraine have introduced partial blockades while fighting coronavirus infections.
Residents in Poland, parts of France, including Paris and the Ukrainian capital Kiev, faced new restrictions on Saturday, with most shops closed and people urged to work from home.
The imposition of new limits comes as the pace of deployment of European Union vaccination remains slow and several member states are facing a third wave of the virus.
In France, the government introduced new measures after a jump in COVID-19 cases in Paris and other parts of northern France.
Under the new measures, non-essential businesses in Paris are closed, while schools remain open and outdoor exercise is allowed up to 10 kilometers (six miles) from home.
As in the previous blockades, a form will be needed to justify why a person has left home in the areas under the new restrictions.
President Emmanuel Macron insisted on Friday that the word “closure” was not appropriate to describe the government’s strategy.
“What we want is to stop the virus without shutting ourselves down. This is not being blocked,” he said at a meeting at the Elysee. “Strictly speaking, the term lockout is incorrect,” he added.
The government argues that measures are needed to ease the pressure on intensive care units that are about to overflow.
Tables are stacked on the terrace of a closed restaurant in Nice, as the 16 most affected departments in France will enter a third blockade imposed to slow the pace of coronavirus disease [Eric Gaillard/Reuters]Third wave
Reports in Paris by Natacha Butler and Al Jazeera said that while these measures are more flexible than previous ones, the government has insisted that it is important to follow them.
“They are asking employers to make sure as many staff as possible work from home … the government says … that some parts of the country are firmly on a third wave.
“COVID infections have been on the rise in recent weeks, almost 40,000 a day in recent days, certainly much more than 10 days ago, when they were about 20,000 a day.
“And in Paris, doctors say intensive care units are almost saturated, in fact, some hospitals in the city had to move their patients out of the city to hospitals in different regions of France,” Butler said.
Meanwhile, in Germany, cases are rising at a “very clearly exponential rate,” a higher public health institute said on Friday, with many hoping to introduce new limits on work and social life in the coming days.
The Robert Koch Institute reported 17,482 new infections in the previous 24 hours and 226 deaths in Germany, with a seven-day incidence rate raised to 96 per 100,000 people despite a month-long closure of large expanses of public life.
German leaders agreed earlier this month to impose new restrictions on regions where the seven-day incidence rate exceeded 100.
“We are in the third wave of the pandemic, the numbers are rising, the percentage of mutations in the virus is high,” Health Minister Jens Spahn told a news conference.
Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Friday that Germany should not hesitate to introduce emergency measures and return to a tough closure if necessary.
A woman with flowers on her head attends a protest against government restrictions on coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Kassel, Germany [Thilo Schmuelgen/Reuters]
Frustrations with the curbs of COVID-19 spread on Saturday, with outbreaks in a major anti-restriction protest in the German city of Kassel and thousands of people joining a similar demonstration in Liestal, Switzerland.
“End the closure” and “Crown rebels” read the protesters’ signs at the Kassel protest, organized by a group that attracted activists from both the far left and far right as well as anti-vaxxers and conspiracy theorists. .
“I think Europe and many other countries in the world are, or at least the population perceives, that they are in an endless cycle of rising and falling epidemics, and this cycle is accompanied by subsequent blockages and relaxations,” Marc said. Van Ranst, a professor at the University of Leuven and the Rega Institute for Medical Research, said.
“This puts a lot of pressure on the population to keep morale high, it’s not easy … and I think the only solution to stop this endless cycle will be the vaccination program,” he added.
Globally, COVID-19 has killed 2.7 million people while more than 69 million have recovered according to data released by Johns Hopkins University.