The coronavirus is raising its ugly head again, from China to Europe.
By Associated Press
The British government is set to announce new restrictions Monday on business and socializing in major northern England cities with high infection rates. But pubs, restaurants and other businesses are pushing back, arguing that they are not to blame for a resurgent outbreak.
Local authorities in hard-hit cities including Liverpool and Manchester are seeking financial support for businesses that are ordered to close, and details of an exit strategy from local lockdowns.
After falling in the summer, coronavirus cases are on the rise in the UK as winter approaches, with northwest and northeast England seeing the steepest increases.
Meanwhile, Chinese health authorities will test all 9 million people in the eastern city of Qingdao for the coronavirus this week after nine cases linked to a hospital were found, the government announced Monday.
Qingdao is a busy port with the headquarters of companies including Haier, a major appliance maker, and the Tsingtao brewery.
The announcement broke a two-month streak with no virus transmissions reported within China, though China has a practice of not reporting asymptomatic cases.
England’s new measures
Under the new measures, areas of England will be placed in “tiers,” classing them as at medium, high or very high risk, and placed under restrictions of varying severity.
Liverpool mayor Steve Rotheram said his city was to be placed in the highest category.
“We were told we were going into Tier 3 — no ifs, no buts,” he said.
Rotheram, mayor of the greater Liverpool region in northwest England, said local officials have not yet agreed with Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative government what the exact restrictions will be. Johnson is due to give more details in the House of Commons later.
Businesses including gyms and pubs are expected to be shut, but restaurants are lobbying to be allowed to remain open. Rotheram said cities also wanted to know what the exit strategy would be from the measures, which are set to be reviewed after a month.
The UK has experienced Europe’s deadliest outbreak, with an official death toll of 42,825. Health officials say Britain is at a tipping point in the outbreak, with strong action needed to prevent hospitals being overwhelmed at a time of year when they are already at their busiest with flu and other winter illnesses.
Stephen Powis, medical director of the National Health Service in England, said there are currently more people hospitalized with the virus than there were when the country went into lockdown in March.
He said three temporary COVID-19 hospitals in northern England that were mothballed when the outbreak receded over the summer were being readied to admit patients once again in the coming weeks.
England’s deputy chief medical officer, Jonathan Van-Tam, said Monday that while northern England has the highest infection rates, cases are on the rise across the country.
“The epidemic this time has clearly picked up pace in the north of England earlier than it did in the first wave and that almost certainly relates to the fact the disease levels in the north, and certainly in the northwest, never dropped as far in the summer as they did in the south,” Van-Tam told a news conference.
European outbreak
French Prime Minister Jean Castex has warned that France could impose further restrictions as the coronavirus is spreading rapidly and the situation in hospitals is deteriorating in the country.
Castex called on French people to limit private gatherings in their homes. He said a “general lockdown” of the country “must be avoided by all means.”
Authorities in Belgium, one of the European countries hit hardest by the coronavirus, are warning that the number of cases is rising at a “quite alarming” rate and that 10,000 people could be catching the virus each day by the end of the week.
In Hungary, health authorities say the number of coronavirus patients needing hospital treatment jumped by 166 overnight to 1,418, the highest number since the outbreak of the pandemic.