Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Saturday announced a new four-week lockdown in England, which will join several European countries in imposing the …
Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Saturday announced a new four-week lockdown in England, which will join several European countries in imposing the measure for a second time since the coronavirus pandemic began, as Slovakia took a different tack and began testing its entire population. The list of countries on the continent re-implementing stringent new restrictions on people’s lives is fast expanding as Europe experiences a dizzying spike in Covid-19 cases, leading to widespread exasperation and sometimes violent protests. Just minutes after Johnson’s announcement, Portugal’s Prime Minister Antonio Costa announced a partial lockdown for his country, with 70 percent of the population going back into lockdown. Also on Saturday, Austria brought in a second lockdown of its own, while Greece declared a partial one. The new measures came just a day after France started its second lockdown and Belgium said it would tighten its measures. — ‘Time to take action’ — The novel coronavirus has killed at least 1,189,892 people and infected 45,650,850 since emerging late last year, according to an AFP tally. The United States, the hardest-hit country, passed nine million reported coronavirus cases on Friday, as infections spike just days before the country’s presidential election. President Donald Trump, running for re-election on November 3, again downplayed Covid-19’s threat on the campaign trail. «If you get it, you’re going to get better, and then you’re going to be immune,» said Trump, who was hospitalised over his own bout of coronavirus.
