The infection rates are slowing in Europe and amid confusions many countries in Europe is looking to move away from lockdown.
At least half a dozen EU countries have started easing lockdowns, jumping ahead of the European Commission, which on Wednesday will formally unveil its “roadmap” toward lifting containment measures — a document intended to prevent the confusion and lack of coordination that marred the bloc’s initial responses to the pandemic.
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The un-choreographed announcements came out of capitals from Copenhagen to Warsaw and preempted moves by other countries, among them the most closely watched being Germany. The constraints on businesses and citizens have helped reduce the death toll and reduce pressure on health systems, but at a staggering economic cost that has unnerved political leaders across the Continent.
In Italy, bookshops, stationery stores and shops selling clothes for children and babies were allowed to reopen Tuesday, under strict sanitary measures.
In Austria and the Czech Republic, hardware and garden stores were permitted to resume business. Austria gave the all-clear to small stores. In Denmark, daycare centers and primary schools are set to reopen Wednesday.
In Germany, which has fared relatively well in managing the coronavirus crisis, Chancellor Angela Merkel is due to speak on Wednesday with state premiers, with an eye toward easing some containment policies. But in France, President Emmanuel Macron on Monday announced a two-week extension of social distancing policies, until May 11, after which he predicted they would start to ease. In Belgium, officials edged toward a similar approach, with a two-week extension likely until May 3.
EU officials stressed that legal authority over the containment measures rests in the 27 national capitals.
But the decision by a number of countries to move ahead with easing restrictions highlighted the continuing struggle of officials in Brussels to assert themselves in the crisis and better orchestrate decisions across the Continent. Just a week ago, some EU countries forced the Commission to delay publication of its roadmap, complaining that it was too soon to contemplate exit strategies. Now, some of those same countries have pushed forward on their own.
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And in a further sign of how officials are straining to be on the same page, European Council President Charles Michel’s office on Tuesday evening sent requests for last-minute changes to the roadmap text, officials said — a highly unusual intervention into the details of a document that ultimately must be endorsed by the 27 heads of state and government on the European Council and that they can change as they see fit before doing so.
Public health officials, including at the World Health Organization (WHO), have warned that a premature lifting of social distancing measures could risk setting off a new spike in infections.
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“While COVID-19 accelerates very fast, it decelerates much more slowly,” WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a news conference Monday. “In other words, the way down is much slower than the way up. That means control measures must be lifted slowly, and with control. It cannot happen all at once. Control measures can only be lifted if the right public health measures are in place, including significant capacity for contact tracing.”
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For the most part, European leaders appear to be moving extremely cautiously — maintaining instructions for as many workers as possible to work from home. Prohibitions on large gatherings remain in force, and in most countries, restaurants and cafés are not expected to reopen for at least several more weeks.
But in a draft of the roadmap obtained by POLITICO, the Commission warned of other consequences if nations do not cooperate: “A lack of coordination in lifting restrictive measures risks having negative effects for all Member States and is likely to give rise to political friction.”
“While there is no one-size-fits-all approach, at a minimum,” the Commission wrote, “member states should notify each other and the Commission in due time before they lift measures and take into account their views.”
But there were signs that such notifications were not yet happening in any coordinated fashion.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, for instance, announced some initial steps to lift his country’s most severe restrictions during a news conference on Easter Sunday.
Sánchez stressed that Spain had not yet lifted its state of alarm and that most containment measures would continue.
“I want to be very clear: we are not even entering the second phase, what the experts have come to call the de-escalation phase,” he said. “The state of alarm continues, the general confinement continues. Only the extreme measure of hibernation … of all the non-essential economic activities that has been in force during these last two weeks has been completed.”
The push by leaders to declare at least an initial victory over the virus, especially in Spain and Italy which have suffered the highest numbers of deaths in Europe, underscored the mounting anxiety among public officials over the economic damage of the prolonged shutdown on so much commercial activity.
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On Monday, the International Monetary Fund issued new projections showing that GDP in the eurozone economy would contract by 7.5 percent this year — a downturn unrivaled since the Great Depression.
Still, leaders are equally distressed over the prospect that ending the restrictions too soon could cost more lives.
The Commission’s roadmap urges leaders to set clear “epidemiological criterion” for ending containment measures, “showing that the spread of the disease has significantly decreased for a sustained period of time,” as well as to ensure there is sufficient capacity in hospitals to provide critical care should the rate of infections start to climb again.
Several leaders indicated they were already planning on such steps.
Sánchez said his government would adhere to benchmarks to be set by a panel of scientific experts.
“We are going to apply the markers recommended by the scientific committee that advises the government, by the experts, to quickly measure both the spread of infections and the response capacity of the health system,” he said. “If we gain ground to the virus and our health system recovers … we will advance in that de-escalation,” he added. “If not, I want to be very clear, we will maintain or reinforce the restrictions. Because the first thing for this government, always, will be the health and life of our fellow citizens.”
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Like Sánchez, Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said his country had reduced the daily increase in new infections to below 3 percent. But even as he announced the reopening of small shops and hardware stores on Tuesday, Kurz warned that he was prepared to reverse course.
“If the numbers go in the wrong direction, we’ll pull the emergency brake,” he said at a news conference Tuesday morning.
“Our approach over the coming months is very clear: as much freedom as possible, as many restrictions as necessary,” Kurz said.
Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is due to present the roadmap document at a news conference Wednesday morning. The Commission’s chief spokesman, Eric Mamer, said that because the easing of containment measures by EU countries would take many weeks, the roadmap would serve as an important coordinating document, even if some nations had already taken a few first steps.
“I think that the whole process of lifting containment measures is going to take a long time,” Mamer said. “So some may be starting on their own, but hopefully they will soon realize that the recommendations they asked us to produce will help them steer through the process.”
As the spread of the coronavirus appears to be slowing in certain parts of Europe, some nations are cautiously beginning to ease restrictions on business and movement.
Denmark was one of the first countries in Europe to announce that it would shut schools, borders and businesses, and fewer than 300 people have died from the virus. Now Danish authorities say that the spread of the virus has been slowed enough that the country can begin to reopen. Elementary schools and day cares will open their doors on Wednesday, but the move has been divisive.
As Sidsel Overgaard reports for NPR, concerned parents launched a Facebook group called “My Child Will Not Be A Guinea Pig for COVID-19.” That group now has about 40,000 members.
The chairman of the Parents Union in Denmark, Signe Nielsen, told Overgaard that she’s feeling secure about the situation and will be sending her kids to school this week, but she can understand others’ worries.
“In Denmark we closed down the community quite fast and it was done by telling people, well, you can die of COVID-19 so people got really, really scared,” said Nielsen. “And I think from the reopening point, a lot of parents need more communication about how it’s not so unsafe for their children to go back to school. We need to make them feel secure.”
Government officials say that by sending children back to school, parents can work from home more productively and bolster the economy.
In Austria, thousands of shops were allowed to open again on Tuesday. “I am incredibly relieved, both for my colleagues and for myself because it was a very, very long time for us, and above all an uncertain time,” Vienna florist Barbara Kugler told Reuters.
The country closed schools, restaurants and bars about a month ago, and has seen 384 deaths due to COVID-19.
In the neighboring Czech Republic, which has had 161 deaths from the virus, the government is set to reopen stores and restaurants beginning April 20 — but people will still be required to wear masks. Certain shops including hardware stores and bike stores were permitted to reopen last week.
Czech Health Minister Adam Vojtěch said Tuesday that the virus’ reproductive rate in the country was now less than 1, Reuters reports, meaning a person with the virus infects fewer than one person.
Spain, where more than 18,000 people have died, allowed manufacturing and construction work to resume on Monday. Other workers whose businesses were deemed important — from tobacconists to lawyers — were also permitted to leave their homes: an estimated 4 million workers, according to The Local Spain. Police handed out masks at transit hubs to returning workers.
The German National Academy of Sciences, the Leopoldina, sent a paper to Chancellor Angela Merkel and state governors with its recommendations for a gradual return to normality. Some 3,200 people have died in Germany.
The academics’ requirements for such a return is that new infections stabilize at a low level, the health system is not overloaded, infected people are increasingly identified and protective measures — including masks and social distancing — are observed.
Merkel was to discuss the recommendations with her cabinet on Tuesday, and will meet with state governors via video conference on Wednesday to begin planning a path out of the lockdown — as well as strategies for dealing with an anticipated recession.
“I can say that the latest numbers on the spread of the virus give reason for cautious hope,” Merkel said Tuesday, according to Reuters. “The curve is flattening slightly. And the number of those infected is going slightly down. We can be very happy about that.”
“We must be happy that tougher restrictions may not be needed,” she added. But, Merkel warned, lifting the restrictions too early could set back the progress that has been made.