Coronavirus: Switzerland imposes new rules on social life, while Greece expands local lockdowns.
A day after France and Germany opted for severe coronavirus restrictions, Switzerland on Thursday took steps to try to control its own growing outbreak, imposing tighter controls on social gatherings, closing nightclubs and imposing an 11 p.m. closing time for bars.
For the moment, restaurants, shops and businesses will be allowed to remain open in a strategy that the home minister, Alain Berset, described as “a middle path” designed to limit the economic impact of the pandemic.
The new measures came as Switzerland recorded its highest number of daily cases since the start of the pandemic. The nation of eight million has reported an average of 6,271 new daily cases over the past week and has reported 1,985 total deaths.
The high rates of new cases in Switzerland led the authorities to reduce the number of countries from which arriving travelers must quarantine. The list, which includes countries with a higher per capita rate of infection than Switzerland’s, featured more than 60 countries earlier this month. The list released on Wednesday included only four European countries — Andorra, Armenia, Belgium, and the Czech Republic — and three regions of France, including Paris.
The Swiss authorities also limited public gatherings to 50 people, sports and cultural activities to 15 people, and private family gatherings to 10.
“If it’s not possible to get the virus under control, then other measures are possible,” Mr. Berset told a news conference in the capital, Bern.
In Greece, after a new spike in cases, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said on Thursday that he would announce a one-month action of “targeted restrictions” on Friday aimed at averting a second nationwide lockdown.
Three more regions will be locked down, Mr. Mitsotakis said: the country’s second-largest city of Thessaloniki as well as Rhodope, also in the north, and Larissa in central Greece. They will join four northern regions that have been locked down this month. Schools and retail stores will remain open, Mr. Mitsotakis said.
Greece initially did well in controlling the spread of the virus, but daily cases have been rising recently, entering four digits this week. By Wednesday, the country had recorded 34,299 cases and 603 deaths.
In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel on Thursday explained the necessity and details of the country’s monthlong partial lockdown. “The measures we are now taking are appropriate, necessary and proportionate,” she told lawmakers in a 25-minute speech that was repeatedly interrupted by heckling by members of the far-right party Alternative for Germany, or AfD.
“Lies and disinformation, conspiracy and hatred damage not only the democratic debate but also the fight against the virus,” she said.
The parliamentary head of the AfD called the new rules a “corona dictatorship” and said: “We consider the paralysis of the cultural sector, the gastronomy, and practically the entire leisure life of the citizens, as announced by Ms. Merkel, to be excessive and inappropriate.”
Germany has been averaging about 12,700 cases a day in the past week.
In Spain, ahead of a long holiday weekend, most regions announced travel restrictions that would prevent about 80 percent of the country’s 47 million residents from visiting other parts of the country.
— Nick C******-Bruce, Niki Kitsantonis, Christopher F. Schuetze and Raphael Minder The New York Times