Easing European COVID-19 measures a test for officials

VIENNA: As some European countries plan to start easing coronavirus lockdowns, resuming economic and social life for millions of Europeans is likely to be a delicate operation.

“There is no international benchmark on the matter,” said Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz. The small Alpine nation this week became the EU’s first to schedule a gradual loosening of confinement restrictions from next week.

Denmark and Norway have followed suit, while Greece, Portugal and Slovenia have raised the possibility of easing restrictions even as the World Health Organization warned not to. “Now is not the time to relax measures,” WHO regional director for Europe, Hans Kluge, said Wednesday.

Austria, Norway and Denmark believe they have “flattened” the COVID-19 contamination curve. In Austria, which has reported more than 12,800 coronavirus infections, the daily rise has slowed to around 2.0 percent.

This compares with 40 percent in mid-March before schools, restaurants and shops except supermarkets and pharmacies were closed and restrictions on leaving homes were issued. Norwegian Health Minister Bent Hoie said coronavirus infections — there are now more than 5,800 reported in the country — were “under control”.

The government said the reproduction rate — the number of new people infected by each patient with the virus — had fallen to 0.7. This is down from 2.5 in mid-March when containment measures such as banning sports and cultural events and closing educational institutions were introduced. The number of deaths in Austria (273), Denmark (218) and Norway (80) has also been contained, and medical systems have not been overwhelmed.

Easing restrictions would be done step by step, officials have said, with many measures to remain in place for months to come. Austria wants a gradual opening of shops from April 14. Hotels and restaurants, as well as primary and secondary schools could open again from mid-May. Meanwhile, in Denmark, school classes are to resume gradually from April 15. No date has been announced for the reopening of bars, restaurants, hair and massage salons, shopping centres and nightclubs.

In Norway, nurseries will re-open on April 20, and some high school, college and university classes will resume on April 27. In all three countries, re-authorising large gatherings or sport or cultural events remains out of the question until at least July or August. Greece, on the other hand, has said it hopes for a “return to normalcy” in May, just like Portugal, provided that people strictly comply with confinement measures until then.