PARIS: Officials around the world reintroduced a number of restrictions on Monday, from beach closures to quarantine measures, to mitigate coronavirus hot spots, as the official death toll increased to 650,000.
European countries seeking to repair economic damage through past blockades have struggled to balance the maintenance of tourism’s lifeline while protecting themselves from additional outbreaks of infection.
Spain’s hiking has faced new anguish after British travellers, and a major tour operator, cancelled flights there following London’s resolve to restore quarantine for travellers returning from the country.
Hong Kong ordered the mandatory use of masks in public in reaction to a new wave of infections.
Belgium has tightened its social estrangement measures to end what an expert has described as an outbreak of “worrying” cases.
In Washington, meanwhile, the White House announced that another senior management officer, national security adviser Robert O’Brien, had the virus.
But as bleak figures continued to arrive, the World Health Organization opposed the general closure of the border.
“It’s not necessarily a sustainable strategy for the global economy, for the world’s poor, or for anyone else,” said WHO Emergency Director Michael Ryan.
A “universal global policy” was highly unlikely because outbreaks were emerging in other countries, he added.
‘Remarkably serious’ situation in Hong Kong
WHO said its emergency committee will meet later this week to discuss the crisis, six months after the organization declared the pandemic a foreign public emergency.
The global death toll from the pandemic increased to 650,000 on Monday, nearly a third of that number in Europe, according to an AFFP count compiled from official resources at midnight.
Since its outbreak in China late last year, the virus has killed a total of 650,011 others; however, more than 100,000 deaths have been recorded since 9 July and the global figure has doubled by just over two months.
China reported its number of coronavirus cases in 3 months, as a component of a worrying wave of infections in Asia and Europe.
Indonesia on Monday showed its 100,000th case of coronavirus, while the Red Cross warned that the crisis in the world’s fourth most populous country threatens to “become uncontrollable.”
New infections have also increased in Hong Kong, which for weeks results in controlled infection rates.
Now, however, everyone in densely populated territory will have to wear a mask in public from this week.
“The scene of the epidemic in Hong Kong is remarkably serious,” Chief Secretary Matthew Cheung said in pronouncing the move, as well as banning more than two other people from collecting in public and restaurants simply serving takeaway.
Tourism has hit hard
Spain, which has already paid a large amount of lives and economic losses for the pandemic, suffered another blow after the tour operator TUI cancelled all UK holidays in mainland Spain from Monday to August 9.
They reacted to Britain’s resolution on Saturday to demand that travellers returning from the country be quarantined for two weeks.
“There have already been cancellations and more are expected,” said Emilio Gallego, secretary of the Spanish hotel association.
“No one will come here for a week of vacation and spend more than 14 days at the shelter when I return home.”
Irish low-cost airline Ryanair said Monday that it sank in red numbers in the first quarter, noting that the pandemic had left its fleet on land for about 4 months.
“The last quarter was the tricky maxim in Ryanair’s 35-year history,” the company said in a statement.
New preventive measures
Other countries have opposed fears of further infections.
Germany will make coronavirus mandatory for travellers returning from high-risk areas, Health Minister Jens Spahn said Monday.
“We will have to prevent returning travelers from infecting others undetected and thus trigger new infection chains,” Spahn wrote on Twitter.
Belgium announced that as of Wednesday, other people would be allowed to see up to five other people outdoors in their family circle, thus cutting the legal “social bubble” through 15.
The measures came after the country registered 1,952 new ones in the following week, more than 70% more than in the following week.
France has ordered nightly curfews for the beaches of the Breton hotel in Quiberon on the Atlantic coast, after a rapidly spreading Cluster of Covid-19 emerged there last week.
Tehran warned Iranians who oppose weddings and funerals, as the coronavirus outbreak showed no signs of a slowdown in the most affected country in the Middle East.
And Britain has introduced an anti-obesity crusade, days after a public physical fitness report in England found that the disease increased the coronavirus death rate by 40%.
The US biotech company Modern began a final phase of clinical trials on Monday for a possible vaccine opposed to Covid-19: the same day it emerged, President Trump’s national security notice, Robert O’Brien, had contracted the virus.
O’Brien, the oldest American personality to date who has become inflamed with the virus, “has isolated himself and worked from a safe place offsite,” said a white House statement.
Click here to see our update to the Covid-19 scenario in Malaysia.