Poland, France and Ukraine have implemented partial lockdowns to combat increasing 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 curbs is because the pace of vaccination roll-out across the European Union 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 will be closed, while schools will remain open and outdoor sports will be allowed up to 10 kilometers from home.
As with previous lockdowns, a form is required to justify why someone left home in areas with the new restrictions.
President Emmanuel Macron insisted on Friday that the word “lockdown” was inappropriate to describe the government’s strategy.
“What we want is to slow down the virus without locking ourselves up. This is not being locked,” he said at a meeting at the Elysee Palace. “Strictly speaking, the term lockdown is not correct,” he added.
The government states that the measures are necessary to relieve the pressure on the nearly overcrowded departments.
Stacked tables can be seen on the terrace of a closed restaurant in Nice as France’s 16 most affected wards go into a third lockdown imposed to slow the rate of coronavirus disease [Eric Gaillard/Reuters]Third wave
Al Jazeera’s Natacha Butler report from Paris said that despite these measures being more flexible than the previous ones, the government has insisted that it is important to follow them.
“They are calling on employers to ensure that as many staff as possible work from home… the government says… that parts of the country are firmly in a third wave.
“COVID infections have been on the rise in recent weeks, almost 40,000 per day for the last few days, which is certainly much higher than 10 days ago, when it was about 20,000 per day.
“And in Paris, doctors say the intensive care units are nearly saturated. Some hospitals in the city even had to fly their patients out of town to hospitals in different regions of France,” Butler said.
Meanwhile, cases in Germany are rising at a “very marked exponential rate,” a leading public health institute said Friday, and many expect new restrictions on work and social life to be introduced in the coming days.
The Robert Koch Institute reported 17,482 new infections in the past 24 hours and 226 deaths in Germany, with the seven-day incidence rate rising to 96 per 100,000 people, despite a month-long shutdown of large areas of public life.
German leaders agreed earlier this month to impose new restrictions in regions where the seven-day incidence exceeded 100.
“We are in the third wave of the pandemic, the number is rising, the viral mutation rate is high,” Health Minister Jens Spahn told a news conference.
Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Friday that Germany should not hesitate to implement emergency measures and return to a hard lockdown 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 COVID-19 curbs erupted on Saturday, with fighting erupting in a major protest against restrictions in the German city of Kassel, and thousands joining a similar demonstration in Liestal, Switzerland.
“End the lockdown” and “Corona rebels”, read the signs held by protesters at the protest in Kassel, organized by a group that has attracted activists from both the far left and the far right, as well as anti-vaxxers and conspiracy theorists.
“I think Europe and many other countries around the world, or at least the population, is perceiving that they are in an endless cycle of epidemics, and epidemics going down, and that cycle is accompanied by lockdowns and subsequent easing. , “Marc Van Ranst, a professor at KU Leuven and the Rega Institute for Medical Research, said.
“That puts a lot of pressure on the population to keep morale up, it’s not easy … and I think the only solution to stop that endless cycle will be the vaccination program,” he added.
Globally, COVID-19 killed 2.7 million people, while more than 69 million have been recovered, according to data released by Johns Hopkins University.