Europe Tries Lockdown Lite – Bloomberg
In Europe, the summer of (relative) virus freedom is over. Cases are surging in Spain, France, the U.K. and other countries, and with the start of fall this week came tighter restrictions. But this time the continent is trying a new strategy: Lockdown Lite.
Countries are so far avoiding the blanket stay-at-home orders that characterized responses to the first wave of Covid-19. Instead, the idea is to home in on where the virus is circulating most certain neighborhoods, for example, or nightclubs and bars while leaving large parts of the economy open for business, Bloomberg reported today.
This is an option because, thanks to more testing and higher infection rates among younger people, deaths are running at only a fraction of the levels seen in the spring. As long as that holds true, governments are ready to try almost anything to avoid the draconian measures that caused their worst recessions in memory. We won t survive, economically and socially, an absolute and generalized lockdown, French Prime Minister Jean Castex told French cable channel BFM TV and Radio Monte-Carlo last month.