Coronavirus: Shutters come down on European cities

Despite sporadic popular protests, Germany has led a tightening of coronavirus curbs throughout Europe.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Picture: Getty Images

Despite sporadic popular protests, Germany has led a tightening of coronavirus curbs throughout Europe while the COVID-19 crisis deepened in the US on election eve.

The virus has infected more than 46 million people worldwide, with more than 1.2 million deaths, and the acute outbreaks in Europe and America are sparking further alarm about the state of the devastated global economy.

To curb the spike in Europe’s biggest economy, German Chancellor Angela Merkel appealed to citizens to help achieve a “turnaround” by respecting a new round of shutdowns from Monday (Tuesday AEDT) until the end of the month.

Germans will not be confined to their homes, but bars, cafes and restaurants must close, as well as theatres, operas and cinemas.

Looking ahead to the festive season, Mrs Merkel ruled out any “lavish New Year’s Eve parties”, but held out hope that families would be allowed to celebrate Christmas together.

The frustration over the economic and social cost of lockdowns has led to protests in many parts of the world, especially Europe, with some leading to violent skirmishes, notably in Spain, Italy, Prague and the eastern German city of Dresden.

In Italy, the first European country to impose a lockdown during the first wave, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte resisted pressure for new national stay-at-home orders in favour of an ­approach targeting the hardest-hit regions.

In Britain, Prime Minister Boris Johnson came under fire for a looming second lockdown in England, with employers warning it would deal a “devastating” blow to business.

Another cloud looming for the government was news that Nigel Farage, the driving force behind Brexit, was set to relaunch his political party as “Reform UK”, with a main focus to oppose the government’s lockdowns.

Much of Portugal faces a lockdown from Wednesday, Austria has announced it is following suit and France, having imposed its second shutdown last week, is preparing to tighten it further.

Hospitals in the Swiss canton of Geneva have warned surging emergency cases there may force them to decide to admit one COVID-19 patient over ­another if one’s chance of survival is better.

And Greece announced a two-week lockdown on its second largest city of Thessaloniki that will include a suspension of flights to and from the city.

Slovakia, which has embarked on a controversial campaign to test its entire population, said two-thirds of the country was tested on the weekend, with about 1 per cent of results coming back positive.

The health situation is also ­deteriorating in the US, the worst affected in the world with 9.2 million infections and nearly 232,000 deaths.

AFP