The French are shuttering. A national coronavirus lockdown for 15 days for just about everyone with the threat of a $150 fine for going out for non-essential reasons.
The Germans now consider the threat level to be “high”, and Europe, as a whole, is finally closing its external borders.
Italy and Spain, Austria, and the Czech Republic have strict measures in place, while Spain closed its land borders.
The Local reports that “[s]chools, universities and creches are closed in Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey and Ukraine”.
The paper also states:
In Belgium, Cyprus and Italy all gatherings have been banned.
Gathering of more than five people are banned in Austria and the Swiss canton of Geneva, while the Czech Republic has prohibited meetings with more than 30.
Denmark, France, Iceland, the Netherlands and Switzerland have set the threshold at 100 people, as have Hungary and Romania for closed meetings.
Finland and Sweden have set the bar at 500 people.
Germany has cancelled non-essential events gathering less than 1,000 people, a threshold also in force in Poland, Portugal and Romania.
Moscow has banned meetings of more than 50 indoors and set limits on outdoor events.
Restaurants and shops closed
Non-essential businesses have been closed in Andorra, Austria, Bulgaria, France, Germany, Greece, Italy and Spain.
In Belgium, nightclubs, cafes and restaurants are closed, as are pubs in Ireland.
Luxembourg and the Netherlands have ordered the closure of all places and businesses open to the public.
Greece has closed its museums and archaeological sites.
Transport disrupted
France has announced a gradual reduction of long-distance transport, including buses, planes and trains.
In Germany regional rail transport will also be heavily reduced.
Rome’s second airport, Ciampino, is closed, while Fiumicino is to close one of its three terminals from Tuesday.
Poland has cancelled all domestic flights.
Ukraine has suspended air links and Russia has reduced them with the European Union.
Austria has suspended rail links with Italy and air links with France, Italy, Spain and Switzerland.
Europe is finally catching up to the reality that a few days of sneezing into tissues and washing your hands isn’t enough to stop the spread and flatten the curve of the coronavirus.
Britain is also learning the hard way.
After initially claiming to be pursuing a “herd immunity” strategy the news was revealed last night that British scientists and Prime Minister Boris Johnson were chasing a plan that would lead to at least 260,000 people dead.
“We were expecting herd immunity to build. We now realise it’s not possible to cope with that,” professor Azra Ghani, chair of infectious diseases epidemiology at Imperial, told journalists at a briefing on Monday night.
Incredible detail in this FT story: up until last week, the UK was basing its coronavirus control policy on a model based on hospitalisation rates for 😲a different disease😲 with lower rates of intensive care need than coronavirus pic.twitter.com/7rJYh9sqg2
— Tom Hancock (@hancocktom) March 16, 2020
The modeling was based on the spread of a different virus.
Britain is now instituting its own lockdown measures, albeit slower than much of the Western world.
