BARA la Ulaya limeingia katika kipindi kipya cha hatari katika vita dhidi ya virusi vya corona wiki hii kwa kuimarisha marufuku za watu kutotembea ovyo pamoja na kuwepo kwa vurugu nchini Uholanzi na Denmark kuwa tishio kwamba zinaweza kusababisha ‘vita vya ndani’.
Kwa mujibu wa Waziri Mkuu wa Ufaransa, Heab Castex, nchi hiyo inategemewa kutangaza marufuku ya tatu ya watu kutotoka katika makazi yao, ambapo pia Italia imetoa wito wa mwezi mzima wa kupitisha marufuku kama hiyo.
Wakati huohuo, matumaini kwamba chanjo inaweza kutoa ufumbuzi wa haraka wa janga hilo, yamepungua baada ya Taasisi ya Pasteur Ufaransa kuondoa chanjo ambayo ilikuwa inaiendeleza na kampuni ya madawa ya Marekani iitwayo Merck.
Bara la Ulaya ambalo mwanzoni lilisifiwa kwa kuchukua hatua madhubuti dhidi ya ugonjwa wa Covid-19 baada ya nchi zake nyingi kupitisha marufuku ya kutotoka nje, imekumbwa tena na wimbi la pili la ugonjwa huo kiasi cha kushindwa kuudhibiti.
As a result and amid fears the UK variant could cause cases to spike, new measures designed to bring the toll down were announced last week, including a 9pm to 4.30am curfew – the country’s first since World War Two.
The prompted protests in 10 cities on Sunday which turned violent, as protesters fought police, looted shops, and trashed police stations.
Authorities in Eindhoven announced on Monday that 62 people had been arrested and more are being sought, while officers in Amsterdam said 192 were arrested.
‘It is unacceptable,’ Prime Minister Mark Rutte said. ‘This has nothing to do with protesting, this is criminal violence and that’s how we’ll treat it.’
‘My city is crying, and so am I,’ Eindhoven Mayor John Jorritsma told media Sunday night. In an emotional impromptu press conference, he called the rioters ‘the scum of the earth’ and added ‘I am afraid that if we continue down this path, we’re on our way to civil war.’
Hubert Bruls, mayor of the city of Nijmegen and leader of a group of local security organizations, added: ‘These demonstrations are being hijacked by people who only want one thing and that is to riot.’
In France, where fears about the UK variant are also prevalent, new border controls came into force on Sunday amid fears that a third nationwide lockdown could be on the cards later this week.
Government spokesman Gabriel Attal told the France 3 broadcaster that ‘all scenarios are on the table’, adding that ‘the next few days will be decisive’.
Some doctors meanwhile said that a lockdown was all but inevitable.
‘We moving towards a lockdown,’ said Denis Malvy, a member of France’s Scientific Council and head of the infectious diseases department in a Bordeaux hospital.
In Italy, Professor Walter Ricciardi – adviser to the Minister of Health – used an appearance on radio to call for another four-week national shutdown, saying it is necessary to bring cases down.
Warning the Italy’s current measures will be enough to flatten the number of cases but not decrease them, he added: ‘We need a real lockdown of three or four weeks then resume tracing and testing, only in this way can we recover a normality that we lack.’
Meanwhile the EU recommended cutting off all-but essential travel to areas deemed to be infection hotspots with 500 or more cases per 100,000 people, and was due to publish a map later this week outlining where they are.
EU Justice commissioner Didier Reynders said that between 10 and 20 EU countries would see all or part of their territory deemed to be a high-infection zone if the map was published today.
‘We also think it is necessary for essential travelers arriving from [those] areas to get tested before traveling and to undergo quarantine, unless these measures would have a disproportionate impact on the exercise of their essential function,’ Reynders said.
Europe continues to be the world’s worst-hit region with coronavirus, having suffered both more cases and more deaths than any other continent.
Since the start of the pandemic, some 29million cases of the virus have been logged in Europe compared to 28.6million in North America – the second-worst affected.
Meanwhile deaths in Europe are now at a combined total of 660,000 – well above second place North America with 600,000.
