A flash mob in front of the leaning tower of Pisa asking the government to accelerate the vaccination campaign against Covid-19, especially for retired people
Credit: Enrico Mattia Del Punta /NurPhoto
Europe is bracing for a nightmare Easter with a third wave of coronavirus forcing Italy to ban holiday travel, France into lockdown and Germany to consider breaking away from the EU’s vaccination program to buy Russian vaccines.
Germany was expected to extend its shutdown as highly contagious variants of the virus took hold and wiped out last month’s progress in containing the pandemic in the EU’s largest and richest country.
Meanwhile Emmanuel Macron was under fire after France imposed a month-long shutdown in Paris and the north of the country in a humiliating U-turn for a French President who hoped to kickstart a recovery in the Eurozone’s second largest economy before elections next year.
His decision, which affects a third of the population, some 21 million people, sparked an exodus from the French capital with trains and planes swamped as Parisians escaped before rules restricting movement beyond 10km from home came into force.
Parisians arrive to catch trains leaving from Gare Montparnasse
Credit: LUDOVIC MARIN/AFP via Getty Images
Mr Macron was said to be keenly aware of the risk of riots against restrictions, similar to those in the Netherlands in January, with one MP warning the third lockdown could be "the straw that breaks the camel’s back”.
France registered 35,000 new cases on Thursday. Intensive care occupancy has risen to 4,246, higher than in November with a quarter of ICU patients hospitalised in the Paris area.
Daily new Covid-19 cases across Europe
A dozen EU nations, including France, Germany and Italy, have now lifted their suspension on the AstraZeneca vaccine, which were imposed amid fears it caused blood clots, after the European Medicines Agency said it was “safe and efficient”.
But the chaotic temporary ban on the Oxford University jab has slowed the already sluggish EU vaccination rollout and damaged trust in the vaccine at a time that the British and South African variants are quickly spreading.
The Robert Koch Institute for infection diseases on Friday reported 17,482 new infections in the previous 24 hours and 226 deaths in Germany, with the seven-day incidence rate soaring to 96 per 100,000 people.
“We are in the third wave of the pandemic, the numbers are rising, the percentage of virus mutations is high," German Health Minister Jens Spahn said.
Daily Covid-19 cases in selected European countries in the past month
Chancellor Angela Merkel will meet with the country’s 16 state leaders on Monday to set new shutdown rules in a country where just 3.8 percent of people are fully immunised.
Mr Spahn said Berlin could buy the Russian Sputnik jab separately from Brussels’ joint procurement scheme to try and wrest the crisis under control.
"I am actually very much in favour of us doing it nationally if the European Union does not do something," Mr Spahn, who has faced calls to resign this week, said.
Anger is rising in Germany at Mrs Merkel’s government over the failure of the vaccine roll-out. “The new German incompetence” was the headline in the weekly Spiegel magazine.
Hungary and the Czech Republic have already authorised and secured Sputnik supplies, which has not yet been approved by the European Medicines Agency. That is allowed under EU rules because Brussels is not yet negotiating for the jab.
Vaccination rates in the UK and the EU
The third wave has battered Italy, which is mired in a three-week shutdown over most of the country, and infections have also soared in Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic.
Italy has the seventh-highest death toll in the world with more than 103,000 killed by coronavirus, the worst in Europe after Britain.
On Thursday, there were 25,000 new cases and 423 deaths in the first European country to be hit by the virus, compared with 431 deaths and 23,000 new cases on Wednesday.
Since Monday, much of the country has been placed back under a strict lockdown, with bars and restaurants shuttered, schools closed for millions of children and only essential shops and supermarkets permitted to remain open.
Italians can only leave home for work, health reasons or to do exercise once a day. There is a 10pm national curfew.
Those “red zone” restrictions will be extended to the entire country for the Easter long weekend in an attempt to keep socialising to a minimum. Many families will be apart at Easter – the government has decreed that non-essential travel between towns and regions is not allowed until at least April 6.
A medical worker comforts a Covid-19 patient at the General Hospital of Karlovac, Croatia, which is running critically short of intensive care beds and respirators
Credit: Xinhua/Shutterstock
As cases begin to rise once more in Spain, the country’s national and regional authorities agreed to shut down all borders between regions over the Easter period to avoid people travelling for tourism or family gatherings.
Coronavirus cases in the Netherlands jumped by around 7,400 in the past 24 hours, marking the biggest increase since early January. In Belgium, more than 200 people have been hospitalised with Covid-19 every day for the past three days. Both countries are reviewing their restrictions.
Although Europe has just 9.7 percent of the world’s population, it accounted for 39.5 percent of the global Covid-19 cases detected in the week ending March 18.
How Europe’s infection rate compares with other continents
More than two thirds of European countries have seen a week-on-week rise in Covid infections and 15 of the 20 most infected countries in the world are European with Estonia and the Czech Republic the worst hit globally.
Experts blamed the more transmissible UK variant combined with slow governments and poor vaccination figures for the rising numbers. The EU has only vaccinated 12 percent of its population.
European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen doubled down on her threat to impose a vaccine export ban on Britain unless UK-manufactured AstraZeneca jabs were sent to the bloc this morning.
French Prime Minister Jean Castex, 55, received the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine on Friday
Credit: THOMAS COEX /AFP
The French prime minister Jean Castex took the AstraZeneca jab on Friday on camera in a bid to rebuild shattered trust in the jab. Winfried Kretschmann, the Minister-President of the German region of Baden-Württemberg took the AstraZeneca vaccine on live TV.
But governments face an uphill struggle convincing their sceptical populations, with one poll suggesting only 20 percent of French people would consider getting an AstraZeneca jab. That’s an even further decrease from just a few weeks ago, as the graph below (latest data available) shows.
A poll of national safety concern of Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine
Its image took a further knock on Friday when France’s higher health body, HAS, advised using the vaccine only on people aged 55 or over. The reports of blood clots had only been seen in those aged under 55.
Only 5.75 million French people have received at least one dose. It emerged that France’s ambassador to the UK had the AstraZeneca jab in Britain three days ago, when it was still suspended. Catherine Colonna tweeted that the jab was “Done.Safely”.
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