Holland’s bars, restaurants and cafes face two-week closure

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Governments across Europe are tightening restrictions in a bid to control the second wave of the coronavirus that has sent new confirmed infections on the continent to their highest weekly level since the start of the pandemic.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday there were more than 700,000 new COVID-19 cases reported in Europe last week, a jump of 34 per cent from the previous week. 

Britain, France, Russia and Spain accounted for more than half of the new infections.

The increasing caseload is partly the result of more testing, but the U.N. health agency noted that deaths were also up 16% last week from the week before. 

Doctors are warning that while many of the new cases are in younger people, who tend to have milder symptoms, the virus could again start spreading widely among older people, resulting in more serious illnesses.

From Wednesday evening, the Netherlands will go into ‘partial lockdown’, shutting down bars, restaurants and cafes for two weeks and ban alcohol sales after 8pm to get a grip on a spiralling outbreak of Covid-19.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte announced the new measures on Tuesday, which also make the wearing of masks mandatory indoors for people ages 13 and over.

The new measures come as as daily cases rose to a record of nearly 7,400 today, and after Holland long refused to make the wearing of masks compulsory.

Meanwhile, bars and restaurants will reportedly close across the whole of Spain’s Catalonia region till the end of the month.

Italy and France are restricting parties and putting limits on restaurants and bars, while the Czech Republic is closing all schools until November 2. 

Latvia is ordering teenagers to switch to distance learning for a week, and Britain unveiled a three-tiered system for deciding what restrictions to impose, based on how severe the outbreak is in certain areas.  

Officials are eager to avoid the total lockdowns they imposed in the spring that resulted in heavy job losses. 

Instead, they are relying on a patchwork of regional or targeted restrictions that have sometimes caused confusion and frustration by those affected.

The moves reflect a new approach to containing the virus among governments wary of hurting already fragile economies. 

The U.N. health agency appeared to support the new approach, with WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic saying lockdowns should be a ‘last resort.’

German Chancellor Angela Merkel told a European Union advisory body on Tuesday that she is watching the rising infection figures ‘with great concern.’

‘We must not squander now what we achieved through restrictions in recent months,’ Merkel said in a video address.

‘None of us found it easy to impose those restrictions,’ she added. ‘Many people lost their lives, and so it is all the more important that we ensure now that a further lockdown won’t be necessary, that our health system isn’t overstrained again.’ 

In the Netherlands, Prime Minister Rutte said: ‘We are going into a partial lockdown. It hurts but it’s the only way, we have to be stricter. If we do all of this, we can quickly return to a more normal life.’

Also among the new measures in the country, team sports for over 18s are banned, while people are now limited to having three visitors at their home per day. 

The rules will take effect at 10pm (8pm GMT) Wednesday and will last for an initial period of two weeks, when the government will review whether they have halted the spread of the virus.

The Dutch government for months opted for what Rutte called an ‘intelligent lockdown’ policy that was far more relaxed than its European neighbours.

But it has scrambled to control the second wave of the disease.

The Netherlands currently has the third highest rate of new infections per 100,000 people in Europe over the last 14 days, behind only the Czech Republic and Belgium, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.

The new steps largely target the catering and entertainments industry where the government says the disease is spreading.

Restaurants and cafes will close for everything except takeaway, as will the Netherlands’ famous ‘coffee shops’ that sell cannabis.

‘No more alcohol or soft drugs will be sold or delivered between 8:00pm and 7:00am,’ the government’s new regulations say, while public consumption of either is also banned during those hours.

The Netherlands has also lagged behind other European countries in ordering the wearing of masks, but Rutte said he wanted to ‘settle a lingering discussion once and for all’.

The Dutch government gave ‘urgent advice’ to wear masks in its last set of measures two weeks ago, but ‘that did not provide sufficient clarity’ and many people continued to go without them, said Rutte.

Rutte, who marks ten years in power on Wednesday, has faced growing criticism over the government’s failure to rein in coronavirus cases.

Populist opposition parties in particular have been using the Covid-19 crisis to push their case ahead of Dutch elections in March. 

While some mayors had called for mandatory mask-wearing, sources said it would be ‘legally complicated’ and take weeks to introduce such a rule.

Authorities are advising people to work from home unless ‘absolutely impossible’, warning that workplaces will be shut down for 14 days if there is an infection. 

The closure of the catering industry was discussed with regional health leaders on Monday, it is believed.

In March, there were queues outside the cannabis cafes after the government announced a closure, before partly backtracking. 

While Holland had brought the first wave under control by the summer, a surge of more than 60,000 cases in the last two weeks has catapulted its infection rate into the top 10 in the world, with a test-and-trace plan failing to contain the outbreak.

The Netherlands has seen 174,450 cases and 6,368 deaths in total.  

After the first wave of infections waned in May, the Netherlands worked to boost testing capacity, promising that screening would be available to everyone. 

Laboratories said they had increased capacity by two-thirds to 51,000 tests per day under a strategy to stamp out hotspots when they sprung up.   

But last month, tests were again limited to people with serious health issues, and Rutte acknowledged capacity was far below demand.

‘We don’t have our basic infrastructure in order’, public health professor Jochen Mierau said. 

‘There is a shortage of tests, while Germany has more than enough to even test people without symptoms.’  

In addition, while masks have been mandatory in German shops since the summer, the Dutch government has only been advising them indoors since last week.  

Rutte has repeatedly said he has no intention of forcing people to wear a mask – which the World Health Organization calls one of the key tools to stop the virus. 

The Netherlands’ top medical official has publicly repeated his assertion that their usefulness is unproven. 

‘Why would we need to force people? What kind of childish nation would that make us? We’ll look at it if we have to, but I’d regret it,’ Rutte said last week. 

He held out hope that the new guidance on masks and earlier closing hours for bars would prove their value.

‘The numbers don’t look good,’ he said, ‘but we can’t see the effects of the new measures until at least this weekend.’

A national poll showed two-thirds of people saying that Rutte, who is facing an election in March, should get tougher.   

The Netherlands is one of a number of governments across Europe that are introducing tighter restrictions in an effort to contain the alarming rises in cases.

In Catalonia, the drastic measure was being taken to avoid a repeat of the emergency lockdown currently in place in Madrid.

It said the regional government called the Generalitat would announce the move at a press conference on Wednesday.

If confirmed it would be the first time bars and restaurants have had to close across the region since the three-month state of emergency which began in Spain in mid-March.

They would be allowed to serve only take-away food and not meals or drinks to consume at the premises. There has been no official comment yet from the Generalitat.

It had been widely reported earlier in the day the closure of bars and restaurants was an option on the table due to be discussed at a meeting with representatives of those affected.

Non-professional sports competitions are also being suspended for 15 days in the region.

The decision was taken after regional health chiefs put the increase in the number of Covid-19 cases for next week at 30 per cent.

The number of new cases confirmed in Catalonia Tuesday was 1,280, taking the total so far to 187,574.

Health chiefs said 14 people had died in the last 24 hours, bringing the total since the start of the pandemia to 13,513.

Spain’s socialist-led government declared a state of emergency on Friday to keep Madrid in partial lockdown after its right-wing regional government rejected the move and a court order overturned the original central government lockdown order.

The Spanish government said the spread of the coronavirus in Madrid is still worrisome despite a drop in the number of patients treated in hospitals.

The Madrid regional chief, Isabel Diaz Ayuso, urged again the central government to lift a soft lockdown that was imposed on Friday.

But Health Minister Salvador Illa says time is needed to evaluate if a slower spread of the virus is not due to delays in the reporting of infections or the lower number of lab tests performed in Madrid.

Madrid accounted for 15 percent of 7,118 new infections reported Tuesday by the health ministry, bringing the national caseload to more than 896,000. With 80 new deaths confirmed in the past 24 hours, the death toll rose to 33,204.

Health experts agree that official numbers fail to capture the real extent of the outbreaks due to insufficient testing, cases missed or other issues.

In Italy, Premier Giuseppe Conte ordered bars and restaurants to close at midnight and banned pickup sports games among friends and parties in enclosed spaces. Private gatherings at homes with more than six people who don’t live together are also discouraged.

‘Our objective is clear: We must prevent our country from plunging back into a generalized lockdown,’ Conte said.

Italy reported more than 5,900 people tested positive over the past day and 41 people died, bringing the country’s official COVID-19 death toll to more than 36,200, the second-highest in Europe after Britain.

The outbreak has spread to the annual Giro d’Italia, which was thrown into chaos after several top riders withdrew from the cycling race following positive tests for the coronavirus.

Italy made masks mandatory outdoors last week, a requirement already in place in Spain, Turkey, India and a few other Asian countries. 

Elsewhere in Europe, such mandates are in effect in many places in Poland and hot spot cities like Paris and Brussels, and are being introduced in several German cities.

In France, which has seen a rapid increase in infections, Paris, Marseille and seven other large cities have been placed under maximum alert, resulting in the closing of bars, gyms and swimming pools. 

Public parties are banned, and restaurants have to maintain at least 1 meter (3 feet) between tables, with groups of diners limited to six people.

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki urged the country’s citizens to observe social distancing and wear masks as he himself went into quarantine following contact with someone who later tested positive for COVID-19. He said in a video message that his government was working as usual and that he had no symptoms.

Poland, a nation of about 38 million, has seen a sharp spike in newly recorded infections, with close to 5,100 cases and 63 deaths reported Tuesday. Over the summer, new daily cases were around 600.

Some doctors are warning that Poland’s chronically underfunded health care system may collapse if the current rate of new cases continues.

In Britain, which has suffered the deadliest outbreak in Europe, with a toll of more than 43,000, officials defended their new system as striking the right balance. Under the plan unveiled this week, Liverpool is in the highest-risk category, and its pubs, gyms and betting shops have been shut.

‘The prime minister has to balance protecting people’s lives and the NHS (National Health Service) from the virus while also prioritizing things that matter to us as a society, like education and keeping as many people in employment as possible,’ Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick told the BBC.

Britain’s number of newly confirmed COVID-19 cases has more than tripled in the last three weeks, with infection rates rising across all age groups and regions.

In an effort to keep people and goods moving throughout the European Union, member countries approved a color-coded system Tuesday.

The countries agreed to not restrict people traveling between green areas – where infection numbers are low – but EU governments will continue to set their own restrictions, such as quarantines or mandatory testing upon arrival, for people coming from orange or red zones.

Meanwhile, Northern Ireland’s devolved government is set to impose tougher COVID-19 restrictions, First Minister Arlene Foster said after a rapid spread of cases led to the cancellation of elective surgeries across Belfast on Tuesday.

The British-run region has become one of Europe’s biggest COVID-19 hotbeds in recent weeks. Its health minister described the situation as getting more grave by the hour last Friday and said further constraints were likely.

However, the mandatory power-sharing government led by rivals Sinn Fein and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) have disagreed in public on how strict any new measures should be and ministers were still meeting late on Tuesday to finalise the response.

The measures will be announced in the regional parliament at 0930 GMT on Wednesday, a statement on the parliament’s website said.

‘Whatever we put in place will only be for a limited period of time so that we can find our way out of the restrictions that have to be put in place,’ Foster of the DUP said in a video posted on her Facebook page.

Foster said it was critical that ‘long term’ school closures were avoided. Local media reported that a two-week closure of schools was being considered in what may amount to the toughest constraints anywhere in the United Kingdom.

Restrictions in Northern Ireland are currently not as severe as many areas elsewhere in the UK or across the open border in Ireland.

The Belfast Health and Social Care Trust announced earlier that it was cancelling elective surgeries in the capital for the rest of the week due to a rise in COVID-19 admissions

The city’s main COVID-19 facility, the Mater Hospital, was caring for 10 ventilated patients on Tuesday, one less than capacity, the Trust said, adding that more will likely require critical care in the coming days.

Northern Ireland’s health department reported 863 new COVID-19 cases on Tuesday and seven more deaths, bringing its cumulative seven-day rate of infections per 100,000 people to 334.1.