Name: Countries across Europe introduce holiday lockdowns | Coronavirus update
Uploaded: 2020-12-20T18:15:08.000Z
Duration: 9 min 23 s
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countries across Europe are introducing a new round of coronavirus restrictions.

Adverbs of degree

They're coming in either just before Christmas or soon after.

Italy is the latest country to announce new measures.

Shops, bars and restaurants there will close and travel between different regions will be banned.

Similar precautions are being taken across the continent.

A pause on public life across Europe shuttered shops and empty streets in Germany as the country goes into its first weekend of hard lock down this winter, Austria will follow suit just after Christmas.

Non essential businesses will close on December 26.

Austria's coronavirus infection rate is lower than many of its neighbors, but there are fears that could change.

Since we're not an island and have people coming in from other countries, we should prepare ourselves for the possibility of exponential growth at any time.

Sweden's infection rate, on the other hand, has been surging for two months.

The Nordic country never imposed a full lock down, relying instead on voluntary social distancing.

But with case numbers going up, non essential public facilities like pools and libraries will close on for the first time.

The government is recommending residents wear masks on public transport, yet the measures remain lax compared to Germany and Austria.

Ah, very seriously locked down, for example, wouldn't have effect in the long run because people would not put up with that.

Switzerland two is headed for locked down as restaurants are set to close next week.

The Swiss government has urged people to stay inside, but his left at least one decision to local authorities.

Whether toe open ski lifts this year, skiers will have to add covert 19 to the long list of Alpine hazards.

And for more on this, I'm joined by Klaus Pompous, a journalist in Vienna.

Everybody who wants toe enter Austria from today on has to go into Karen Tine for 10 days.

He can test himself free after five days, but first of all, he has to stay in current time for at least five days, if not 10 days.

So the second day of Christmas, everything is suspended again.

All shops are closed, hotels and restaurants are closed already.

Now But then all shops besides food stores, pharmacies and drug stores will be closed.

No museums are available up toe the 17th of January.

C U will be overloaded, so they closed everything down again.

Wow, Sounds like a lot of measures are being taken.

Let me ask you a multibillion dollar question as regards to ski industry Switzerland, your country's neighbors, letting local authorities Assad on whether to open the ski lift.

The local authorities can decide whether they open or not, and they will open, as we heard yesterday from Salzburg and as we heard from T.

In the end, because no Germans, no Italians, no sweets, people can enter if they do so, for example, from Bavaria.

When they go back, they have to go in Carolina's well for 10 days.

So I suppose nobody will come to Austria to go ski besides the Austin's themselves.

There is no appreciate this season, and you can go only up and down and then you go up in the gondola or the ski lift, you have to wear a mask and not every seat may be filled.

Can you help us understand what the chancellor, Sebastian Kurtz, said when he said, Austria is not a Nyland and has people coming in?

When you're describing all these complicated quarantine restrictions, it sounds like it's becoming a bit of one.

He's afraid that a lot of people living in Austria coming from the Western Balkans go home on Christmas up to the sixth of January.

If you think of Serb Orthodox people and he's afraid they bring back more infections as that it partly in summertime, these measures now should be imposed in a way that nobody really travels and everybody stayed home.

If this were function, we will see later on.

But I thought about functional ability off this because not everywhere control is so maximize that you can exclude infections coming in again into the country.

How is it from this house or from the north?

You're welcome And for more on this, I'm joined by Dr Claudia Hansen, an epidemiologist at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm.

What are the new measures and why the big change Good morning from Stockholm.

The big changes that the country is realizing that the president's strategy does not really protect the most vulnerable and the old people.

So they realize a bit that the particularly the promise which was given in the spring, that there wouldn't be a second wave because off reached hard immunity doesn't hurt.

So that is changing the public opinion, which is very important.

I'm not sure whether the present measures will really bring the case numbers tremendously down after hearing yeah, um, the government is now recommending that passengers wear masks on public transport but won't make them mandatory.

They have been telling the public two months.

I'm not sure how voluntary measure now can can work in public transport.

And your country, as we heard in the reporter, went it alone at the beginning of the outbreak when other European countries, uh locked down.

Can we now say that that was the wrong approach?

I personally think it's the wrong approach and it's a It's a wrong discussion to think about, lock down and not locked down.

That means if you do something very short and decisive very fast, you benefit on the long run.

It's about very decisive fast measures at the right time, which could help on the public in Sweden would work on voluntary measures.

It just needs to be explained by, and that has not been taken place.

So is it a failure of communication on the government's part?

The government has been saying, must do not work.

The government hasn't said that there's a symptomatic transmission.

That means that you can, in fact, from somebody who doesn't know that he's he's ill.

There is no the tracing tests and tracing and isolating it is not well established.

So how can the public make informed decision?

Okay, Dr Claudia Hansen, an epidemiologist at the Karolinska Institute Thanks for that.

A second cove in 19 vaccine has been authorized for emergency use in the United States.

Millions of doses of the Modern A vaccine are expected to be added to the massive American vaccination program, which began this week with health care workers.

Older people in long term care facilities are next in line.

S Food and Drug Administration authorized the vaccine developed by biotech and Pfizer.

Here's a look now at some of the latest developments in the pandemic.

German health departments reported 31,300 new cases on Friday and 702 fatalities related to Covad.

19 over 25,000 people have now died of the disease in Germany.