Pending the discovery of a vaccine or a remedy to curb the coronavirus epidemic, European countries are each refining their own plan to get out of containment, a real global headache.
After several weeks of increase, the pandemic, which has killed more than 200,000 people out of nearly three million infected worldwide, is slowly starting to decline in the four most affected European countries.
Beginning of deconfinement in Switzerland
Sunday, the four of them posted daily death tolls down sharply: 288 dead in Spain, 260 in Italy, 242 in France and 413 dead in hospital in the United Kingdom, the lowest number since the end of March. By far the country most affected by the pandemic, in terms of both number of infections and deaths, the United States meanwhile recorded an additional 1,330 deaths on Sunday evening in the past 24 hours. The Swiss will be able to return to the hairdresser, with the reopening of certain shops on Monday.
Subject to respecting the barrier measures, it is first of all the hairdressers, physiotherapists, doctors, massage parlors, florists, garden centers, as well as the nurseries which will resume their activities. The confinement was less harsh there than in Spain. After six weeks locked up at home, the little Spaniards can since Sunday start playing again in the street, with a certain number of restrictions like the absence of contacts. The confinement has been extended until 9 May inclusive, and the government will present its relaxation plan on Tuesday.
Boris Johnson's comeback
The same day, the French Prime Minister, Edouard Philippe, will unveil his "national strategy for the deconfinement plan", which must begin on May 11, with in particular a gradual but controversial reopening of schools. Italy too must detail at the start of the week the measures it plans to start from May 4. However, the schools will remain closed until September. In London, Prime Minister Boris Johnson, himself struck by the virus, must make a highly anticipated return to business on Monday.
Norway reopened schools for the little ones on Monday. A week after the "barnehager" who serve as nurseries and kindergartens, it is the turn of children aged six to ten to find the school benches, in classes reduced to 15 students. Also in China, where the Covid-19 appeared at the end of last year, middle and high school students made an ultra-safe return to school in Beijing and Shanghai metropolitan areas on Monday, with masks and temperature four months of long vacation due to epidemic.
In China, students find their way back to school
In Beijing, only high school students in the final year were allowed to return to class on Monday to prepare for the "gaokao", the university entrance exam. In Shanghai, it was the last year of middle school students who took over the class. All Chinese schools have been closed since late January. The country has since contained the epidemic, with an official death toll of 4,633, but the authorities now fear a second wave of contamination with so-called “imported” cases, the majority of Chinese returning to the country.
In the United States, President Donald Trump did not give his usual coronavirus briefing on Sunday, after the sarcasm caused by his recommendations ("ironic", he said after the fact) on the injection of disinfectant in the body patients. The recovery is brewing in some states, such as New York, where some manufacturing and construction activities could resume after May 15.
Society
Coronavirus: When to return and how? Ile-de-France residents left to confine themselves to "green" in the blur
Society
Coronavirus: Five challenges that the government will have to meet to deconfine the French
- Europe
- Deconfinement
- Coronavirus
- World
- Covid 19
- Confinement
- Video