Wave of lockdowns across Europe as Covid surge threatens hospitals

Strict lockdowns have returned across Europe as Austria, England, France, Germany, Greece and Portugal were among the latest to impose tough restrictions to tackle a worsening surge of Covid-19 infections that threatens to overwhelm healthcare systems.

Spain reported a new record of 55,019 infections in 24 hours while France reported 52,518, as the nation began its first week in a new period of confinement in which citizens must carry a certificate to leave home.

Authorities in several countries have warned that people are being admitted to hospital in greater numbers than in the initial wave in spring. In Switzerland, a "dramatic" six-fold surge of Covid-19 hospitalisations in Geneva in just two weeks has forced healthcare workers to begin choosing which patients to treat and ferrying people by helicopter to elsewhere in the country for care, according to the regional government.

The canton of Geneva has one of the highest infection rates in Europe with more than 1,000 cases a day in a population of 500,000. The director general of the Geneva-based World Health Organization, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, announced he had gone into quarantine on Monday, because a contact had tested positive.

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‘Heavy hearts’

In Germany, chancellor Angela Merkel said a decision to shut all restaurants, bars and entertainment venues while ordering German citizens to work from home if possible and avoid unnecessary travel was taken with "heavy hearts", but had to be done to turn around the course of the virus.

“These measures are tough. I know that . . . for the next four weeks we will have to go without a lot of the things that make life enjoyable,” Dr Merkel said. “With heavy hearts we decided on these measures, and because we are convinced they are right ones to achieve our goal, and they are necessary to reduce the number of contacts.”

Germany registered a new record of more than 19,000 new cases in a 24-hour period over the weekend, as new figures showed 1,000 people had died of the disease in the country over the past month.

Over the weekend in neighbouring Austria, health minister Rudolf Anschober told a news conference that "a barely controllable increase has begun" and that infections were "de facto exploding", as the government introduced an 8pm curfew, closed bars and ordered restaurants to provide takeaway only.

Overwhelmed

The number of patients now in intensive care in Italy is greater than when the country announced Europe's first nationwide lockdown in spring, and intensive care facilities will be overwhelmed in most of the country within a month if infections are not curbed, the government has warned.

"Despite our efforts . . . the evolution of the epidemic in the last few days is very worrying," prime minister Giuseppe Conte told parliament. "We must intervene with more stringent measures."

But he stopped short of imposing the kind of lockdown seen in spring, instead limiting travel between the worst-hit regions and introducing a nighttime curfew after infections rose 10-fold in a month to reach a record of 32,000 new cases in 24 hours. Gatherings are already limited, gyms, cinemas and theatres are closed, and restaurants and bars must shut by 6pm.