Athens (AFP)
Unusual calm in the streets of Greece once again confined, cinemas and theaters closed in Poland: restrictions are increasing in Europe in the face of the second wave of the Covid-19 epidemic, which continues to break contamination records in the United States.
Greece woke up numb in a second lockdown, like France, England, Ireland and parts of Italy before it.
The main shopping street in Athens, very busy the day before, was deserted, municipal workers disinfecting empty places.
For each exit, the Greeks must obtain a green light from the authorities, by SMS.
Roadblocks check the special permits needed to travel.
The fine for those who do not wear the mask has doubled to 300 euros.
Buzzing with activity, hair salons remain open this weekend to meet the huge demand for haircuts and hair color.
"I want my hair done so that what I see in the mirror every morning during confinement does not cause me sadness," Petrina, forty-something, told AFP.
Before this shutdown, more than 70,000 cars left the capital on Friday in traffic jams, according to police.
According to a count made by AFP from official sources, the pandemic has killed more than 300,000 people on the European continent, for more than twelve million infections.
It is the second most bereaved area in the world, behind Latin America and the Caribbean (more than 410,000 deaths).
New restrictions came into force on Saturday in Poland, which has recorded half a million cases: cinemas, theaters, cultural institutions are closed.
In shopping centers, only stores deemed essential are open.
Primary school students will spend Monday like other students in distance education.
"We are tired of the Covid, by the increasingly strict restrictions," laments Anna Piotrowska, a 35-year-old architect.
"The government's decisions are a bit chaotic, we don't know what to expect and then there are more and more people sick and dead."
The confinements decreed across Europe to curb this new wave, if they are less strict than in the spring, are also less well accepted.
In Germany, thousands of opponents to the wearing of masks and to the new restrictive measures are to gather in the middle of the day in Leipzig, in the former GDR.
The police have planned an important device for fear of possible excesses, counter-demonstrators having also planned to mobilize.
On Friday, it was Italy which had confined 16 million inhabitants of the four regions most seriously affected by the epidemic.
The entire peninsula is under curfew between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m.
To help the families and sector affected, the government decided during the night from Friday to Saturday to release financial measures: baby-sitter bonus, support fund for stores ...
In Iran, the country most affected in the Middle East, the government has resolved to impose new restrictions: shopping malls, cinemas and sports halls will close at 6 p.m. in some cities.
Scientifically, concerns have arisen after the discovery in twelve people in Denmark of a mutant version of SARS-Cov-2 transmissible to humans, from mink farms.
As a precaution, the United Kingdom announced on Saturday to close its borders to travelers from this country.
The mutation of a virus is trivial and often harmless, according to the scientific community.
But in the case of this strain, called "Cluster 5", it implies, according to the first studies, a lower efficiency of human antibodies, which threatens the development of a vaccine against Covid-19.
Six countries, Denmark, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Italy and the United States, have reported cases of Covid-19 in mink farms to WHO.
All mink raised in Denmark - 15 to 17 million animals - will be slaughtered.
The Covid-19 has killed at least 1,243,513 people worldwide and officially infected more than 49.3 million people since the start of the pandemic, according to a count carried out by AFP on Saturday from official sources.
The epidemic is exploding in the United States, by far the most bereaved country in the world with 236,099 deaths from the new coronavirus.
A total of 127,021 new positive Covid-19 cases in 24 hours were identified there on Friday, the third daily record in a row, according to Johns Hopkins University.
Well placed to win the White House, Democratic candidate Joe Biden promised Friday night to implement from the "first day" of his presidency his action plan against the virus.
"It will not be able to save the lives that have been lost but it will save lives in the coming months," he said.
According to US media, President Donald Trump's chief of staff Mark Meadows, 61, has tested positive for the coronavirus, adding to the dozen senior White House officials infected since early October.
© 2020 AFP