ROME (AP) – Tighter restrictions aimed at curbing the rise in coronavirus infections took over much of Italy and parts of Poland on Monday, while in France, Paris is in danger of suffering a blockade over the weekend, since the ICUs are almost saturated with COVID-19 patients.
In line with a decision by the Italian government at the end of last week, 80% of school-age children, from day care to high school, were prevented from entering the classroom as of Monday. The increasing number of ICU beds occupied by patients with COVID-19, a steady increase in the number of daily cases and transmission of infection driven predominantly by a variant of the virus first discovered in Great Britain combined to make the new one. Italian premier Mario Draghi’s government applies the “red zone” designation in more regions, including, for the first time since the color layer system was created last fall, in Lazio, the region that includes Rome.
In red zone regions, restaurants and cafes can only deliver or deliver, non-essential stores are closed and residents must stay close to home, except for work, health or necessary purchases. Over the weekend, many beauty salons extended hours to serve last-minute customers, and crowds filled the shopping streets, parks, and seaside promenades before the crackdown took effect.
On Monday, reality fell.
In a country where coffee is taken, properly, on the counter or on a coffee table, and not in a paper cup for travel, Alessandra Lorisa took off her mask and drank hers in a Roman piazza. “Now, it has become part of our routine,” she said. “It’s much more American, if we can say so,” she added, expressing hope that after Easter “we can see some improvements, to get back to the routines we were used to.”
Draghi on Friday promised a rapid infusion of pandemic aid to closed companies.
In addition to the commercial aspects, parents expressed concern about children excluded from classrooms. “They have little interaction now with their friends, they have to celebrate their birthdays alone,” said Marco Pacciani as he walked through a park in Rome with his son.
In Poland, amid a sharp increase in the number of new infections and hospitalized patients with COVID-19, restrictions have been tightened in two more regions, including the capital, Warsaw, and a western province bordering Germany. Two other provinces were already under restrictions.
With the measures reinforced, hotels and shopping malls should remain closed, as well as theaters, cinemas, gyms and sports facilities. Schoolchildren aged 6 to 9 will have a combination of face-to-face and distance classes.
An inexorable increase in the number of patients being treated in French hospital ICUs, especially in the Paris region, is increasing pressure on President Emmanuel Macron’s government. As is the case in other parts of Europe, variants of the virus are suspected of fueling increases in severe cases in France. The Macron government has tried to avoid another punitive blockade across the country in 2021, opting for a 6 pm to 6 am curfew across the country.
It is expected that it will be decided in a few days whether the Paris region and its 12 million inhabitants will be arrested on weekends.
Last week, Western Balkan countries announced a tightening of measures amid an increase in cases in Serbia, Bosnia and Montenegro.
Upon receiving the first vaccines on Wednesday, doctors in the Bosnian capital Sarajevo warned that the virus had exploded in recent days. Bars, restaurants and non-essential stores in the canton of Sarajevo will be closed next weekend.
In Serbia, Prime Minister Ana Brnabic criticized the performance, in the last few days, of two concerts by a popular band in a hall in Belgrade. The country of 7 million people vaccinated more than 1.5 million people, one of the highest rates in Europe.
At the western end of the continent, Portugal stood out as an outlier. He was emerging on Monday from a two-month pandemic blockade, with the country gradually reopening over the next seven weeks, except for setbacks.
Primary schools and nurseries, hairdressers and bookstores were some of the locations that reopened on Monday. Prime Minister António Costa said in a tweet on Monday that the process must be “very prudent, gradual and fragmented”.
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AP reporters across Europe contributed to this report.