Europe Sees More Restrictions To Fight Pandemic

As a mix of regional and national measures are put into place amid a “second wave” on the continent, governments throughout Europe have put forward more limitations to stem the proliferation of the coronavirus.

Switzerland has mirrored Italy in implementing an intra-country face covering requirement in every public space beginning on Monday. Also, the Republic of Ireland will transition into “Level Five” limitations, ABC News reported.

England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales in the United Kingdom will keep the ability to dictate their own “lockdown” procedures.

A three-level system is in place in England that has different limitations, which vary on if an area has a “very high,” “high,” or “medium” alert.

London has transitioned into the “high” alert level. As a result, household mixing has been prohibited inside, and authorities have not taken out stricter measures off the table for the winter.

Eateries and bars have been closed in Scotland to fight the spread of the coronavirus, while Northern Ireland’s schools have closed for two weeks.

All eateries and bars in Belgium have been told to close for the four weeks to come.

On Monday (Oct. 19), the count of worldwide recorded COVID-19 cases topped 40 million per Johns Hopkins University.

News recently surfaced that Europe has now topped 7.2 million confirmed cases per the World Health Organization.

The United States has 7.9 million and India has 7.3 million per Johns Hopkins data.

As Europe gets ready for a dreaded second wave of the coronavirus, European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde was vowing to ride to the rescue with a significant economic stimulus package if it proves needed.

Lagarde told CNBC’s Geoff Cutmore that the bank is ready to draw upon “the many weapons we have available” such as asset purchase initiatives, forward guidance and interest rates.

“We are seeing maybe a second wave on the horizon or hitting the coastline of Europe and we better make sure that all the arsenal that we have available is actually dealing with the situation by adopting the right policies,” Lagarde said.