Fractures in Many Nations Widen Over How to Ease Lockdowns

Fractures in Many Nations Widen Over How to Ease Lockdowns
Poland's ruling party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski, lower right, wearing an mask, and ruling party members vote in parliament to approve legislation for all-postal voting after Sunday presidential election was postponed due to organizational problems, in Warsaw, Poland, on Thurs., May 7, 2020. (Czarek Sokolowski/AP Photo/)
The Associated Press
5/7/2020
Updated:
5/7/2020
LONDON—Regional and political fractures are emerging in many nations over how fast to lift the lid on the CCP virus lockdowns, as worries about economic devastation collide with fears of a second wave of deaths.

French mayors are resisting the government’s call to reopen schools, while Italian governors want Rome to ease lockdown measures faster. As the British government looks to reopen the economy, Scottish leader Nicola Sturgeon has warned that acting too fast could let the virus wreak havoc again.

“Any significant easing up of restrictions at this stage would be very, very risky indeed,” Sturgeon said on May 7.

Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon pauses for a minute's silence to honor UK key workers, including Britain's NHS (National Health Service) staff, health, and social care workers, who have died during the CCP virus outbreak, outside At Andrew's House in Edinburgh on April 28, 2020. (Jane Barlow/POOL/AFP/ Getty Images)
Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon pauses for a minute's silence to honor UK key workers, including Britain's NHS (National Health Service) staff, health, and social care workers, who have died during the CCP virus outbreak, outside At Andrew's House in Edinburgh on April 28, 2020. (Jane Barlow/POOL/AFP/ Getty Images)

In Britain, where the official death toll stands at more than 30,000, second only to the United States, Prime Minister Boris Johnson was expected to extend a more than six-week lockdown on Thursday but hopes to ease some restrictions on economic and social activity starting next week.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson speaks during a news conference on the ongoing situation with the COVID-19 in London, Britain, on March 22, 2020. (Ian Vogler/Reuters)
Prime Minister Boris Johnson speaks during a news conference on the ongoing situation with the COVID-19 in London, Britain, on March 22, 2020. (Ian Vogler/Reuters)

Restrictions allowing people to leave home only for essential errands, shopping, and exercise were imposed in Britain on March 23. On Sunday, Johnson plans to set out a road map for the next phase.

Johnson said the government will act with “maximum caution” to prevent a second wave of infections.

In France, more than 300 mayors in the Paris region have urged President Emmanuel Macron to delay the reopening of schools, set for Monday. Many mayors around the country have already refused to reopen schools, and many parents will keep their children home even when they are functioning again.

French President Emmanuel Macron, wearing a protective face mask, speaks with schoolchildren during a class at the Pierre Ronsard elementary school in Poissy, outside Paris, on May 5 2020. (Ian Langsdon/Pool/AP)
French President Emmanuel Macron, wearing a protective face mask, speaks with schoolchildren during a class at the Pierre Ronsard elementary school in Poissy, outside Paris, on May 5 2020. (Ian Langsdon/Pool/AP)

The mayors called the timing “untenable and unrealistic,” saying they were put on a “forced march” to get schools ready without enough staff or equipment. They complained that the government guidelines were too vague and slow in coming.

But governments are also under pressure to reopen faster and kick-start economies that have been plunged into hibernation.

Italian regional governors are pressing to open shops and restaurants, just days after the country began easing its two-month lockdown by allowing 4.5 million people to return to work in offices and factories.

A worker operates at a construction site in Milan, Italy, Thurs., May 7, 2020. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)
A worker operates at a construction site in Milan, Italy, Thurs., May 7, 2020. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

Governors want to be allowed to present their own plans for reopening, tailored to the rate of infection and economic needs of their regions.

After an outcry from the nation’s Roman Catholic bishops, Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte announced that public Masses will be allowed to resume on May 18.

In Spain, support for the government is crumbling after seven weeks of a strict lockdown, with some regions and opposition parties demanding an end to the state of emergency declared on March 14. The government argues that it is far too soon.

Some of Germany’s 16 powerful state governments are more impatient than others to open up businesses such as restaurants and hotels. At a meeting Wednesday with Chancellor Angela Merkel, it was agreed that state leaders would have wide leeway to decide when to open more sectors of the economy. They also will have to reimpose restrictions locally if infections rebound.

In Russia, where the number of new infections is growing fast, President Vladimir Putin delegated the enforcement of lockdowns and other restrictions to regional governments, leading to wide variations across the country.

Mikhail Vinogradov, head of the St. Petersburg Politics Foundation, told the Vedomosti newspaper that the Moscow government is sending mixed messages that governors find hard to decipher—wanting a victory over the virus, while also encouraging easing of the lockdown.

Fractures are also evident in the United States, where about half of the 50 states are easing their shutdowns, to the alarm of public health officials.

Many states have not put in place the robust testing and contact tracing that experts believe is necessary to detect and contain new outbreaks. And many governors have pressed ahead with reopening before their states met one of the key benchmarks in the Trump administration’s guidelines for reopening—a 14-day downward trajectory in new infections.

“If we relax these measures without having the proper public health safeguards in place, we can expect many more cases and, unfortunately, more deaths,” said Josh Michaud, associate director of global health policy with the Kaiser Family Foundation in Washington.

Researchers recently doubled their projection of deaths in the United States to about 134,000 through early August. So far the United States has recorded over 70,000 deaths and 1.2 million confirmed infections.

Worldwide, the virus has infected more than 3.6 million people and killed over a quarter-million, according to a Johns Hopkins University tally, which experts agree understates the dimensions of the pandemic because of limited testing, differences in counting the dead, and concealment by some governments.

China, where the virus emerged late last year, reported just two new cases on Thursday, both from overseas, although the Communist regime has consistently misrepresented the scale of the outbreak in the country.

Dr. Deborah Birx, White House coronavirus response coordinator, suggested that numerous lives could have been saved if it were known earlier that human-to-human transmission was occurring.

“You really have to go back and ask yourself, why wasn’t there this level of transparency when this virus exploded?” she added. “I think people would have prepared differently if they had known the level of transmissibility of this virus.”

A report by the Epoch Times on Monday listed new outbreaks in China amid heightened concerns about a second wave. New cases have been reported in Guangzhou, Shenzen, Harbin, and Mudanjiang.

The Chinese regime also fired back against claims by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that there is “enormous evidence” that the virus originated in a Chinese laboratory. Foreign Ministry spokesman Hua Chunying accused Pompeo of “making up lies and covering up a lie by fabricating more lies.”

However, amid the increasingly frenzied attacks from CCP mouthpieces, the secretary of state is gaining popularity among some Chinese netizens.

Strict social distancing also appears to have vanquished the outbreak in New Zealand, where Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is mulling plans to relax the lockdown by allowing gatherings of up to 100 people and holding professional sports events without spectators.

But Ardern called for vigilance.

“We think of ourselves as halfway down Everest,” she said. “I think it’s clear that no one wants to hike back up that peak.”

By Jill Lawless, Angela Charlton and Elaine Kurtenbach, Epoch Times staff contributed to this report