Covid-19: in the United Kingdom, restrictions of variable geometry
Wales imposed 17-day confinement on its inhabitants on Friday.
Here in Tenby.
REUTERS / Rebecca Naden
Text by: RFI Follow
3 min
Confined in one block on March 23 during the first wave, the United Kingdom this time favored a localized approach.
Millions of Britons are therefore now facing toughened but different restrictions.
These efforts to try to stem a second wave of coronavirus are met with a certain weariness.
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With our correspondent in London,
Muriel Delcroix
The United Kingdom is approaching this new regime in a completely dispersed order, at the risk of sowing confusion and frustration among its people.
In England, the government of Boris Johnson, under pressure from his Minister of the Economy, is doing everything to avoid general containment.
He therefore decided to place some 29 million inhabitants under restrictions at high or very high alert levels.
And this is sometimes done in pain, especially in the north-west, which is currently very affected.
Manchester was forcibly placed at the end of the week at the maximum alert level after several days of arm wrestling between Westminster and local communities who wanted more financial compensation.
Three million Welsh confined
Scotland, for its part, has opted for an alert system that has five levels, from level 0, the closest to normal, to level 4 where all non-essential businesses will have to close.
His authorities are already warning the Scots that they will not have a normal Christmas.
For its part, Northern Ireland closed pubs and restaurants for a month in mid-October and decided to extend the school holidays.
But it is Wales which has gone the furthest by requiring its 3 million inhabitants to remain confined to their homes for 17 days from this Friday.
Each British nation says it is convinced it has made the best choice, but this disunited approach bodes well for uncertain results.
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