Portugal has become the latest European country to issue restrictions amid an aggressive second wave of the coronavirus pandemic.
It comes as the global total of COVID-19 cases passed 50 million on Sunday, according to Johns Hopkins University (JHU).
“The situation that Portugal is going through is very serious. Everything must be done to control the pandemic,” said Portuguese Prime Minister António Costa after President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa issued a state emergency.
In 121 municipalities from Monday, there will be a curfew between 11 pm and 5 am and from 1 pm on weekends to curb the spread of the virus.
Portugal has had more than 170,000 confirmed cases since the beginning of the pandemic and like many other countries in Europe, has a rising incidence rate.
Many European countries have issued more restrictions, while attempting to balance the economic fallout of a full lockdown.
United Kingdom: scaled-down Remembrance Day service
The United Kingdom entered its second national lockdown on 5 November and has been recording around 20,000 new cases of COVID-19 per day.
The UK recorded more than 400 deaths due to COVID-19 over the weekend, bringing the country’s total to 49,044 on Sunday.
Remembrance Sunday was marked with a scaled-down service amid the pandemic.
France: intensive care units reaching full capacity
France is one of the worst-hit countries in Europe, with 125,414 new cases and 270 new deaths recorded in the last 24 hours according to JHU data.
In something of a plea on French prime time television last week, Rémi Salomon, the president of the medical commission at the Paris Hospitals (AP-HP), begged people to respect the country’s lockdown. The AP-HP is the largest public hospital system in Europe.
Salomon said that soon they would have to decide who they could treat and who they couldn’t as intensive care units fill up in the country.
He added he was very worried and hoped that his words would change the behaviour of at least some of the people watching.
French officials have said that it is too early to determine if the country’s lockdown has started to help just one week into the lockdown.
Greece: SMS authorisation reintroduced as country enters strict lockdown
Greece entered its second national lockdown on 7 November, as 14 new deaths and 2,448 new cases were recorded – bringing the number of confirmed cases to 52,254 with 715 fatalities.
People are only allowed to leave their homes for work, exercise, shopping for essentials or visiting a doctor. A text messaging system has been put back in place to grant people permission to leave their homes.
Greece is credited with responding quickly to the spread of the virus – it imposed an early lockdown in the spring when it still had just a handful of cases.
Italy: fresh round of local lockdowns and a nationwide curfew
Italy has instituted local lockdowns in four regions and a nationwide curfew in an attempt to stop the virus from spreading. Many countries have closed businesses or issued partial lockdowns.
The governor of an autonomous Italian Alpine province famed for its ski resorts has declared it a “red zone,” shutting down as of Monday most non-essential shops, barring cafes and restaurants from serving meals and forbidding citizens to leave their towns except for essential reasons like work.
Croatia: protests in Zagreb as tighter restrictions are imposed
Hundreds of protesters gathered in central Zagreb on Sunday to demonstrate against measures imposed by the government to tackle the coronavirus, claiming that the pandemic was a scam.
It’s as the country reached a record high in COVID-19 cases over the last week – 15,752 cases and 232 according to JHU.
In total there have been 64,704 infections and 752 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.
Similar COVID-19 protests took place in Zagreb back in September.
EU cuts economic forecast
As a result, the European Union recently cut its economic forecast, stating that the economy would not return to pre-pandemic levels until 2023.
“The forecast projects the unemployment rate in the euro area to rise from 7.5% in 2019 to 8.3% in 2020 and 9.4% in 2021, before declining to 8.9% in 2022,” the Commission said.
“This forecast comes as a second wave of the pandemic is unleashing yet more uncertainty and dashing our hopes for a quick rebound,” said Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis.
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