Bars and restaurants in the US’ biggest city were yesterday to close early as COVID-19 surges across the US and Europe, where Greece is being forced into a nighttime curfew.
It comes as the US, already the world’s hardest-hit country, experiences its third and worst-by-far spike in infections, and large parts of Europe shut down again to tackle the illness.
New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo has announced that all establishments licensed to sell alcohol, including bars and restaurants, should close at 10pm.
Photo: AFP
Also launching new restrictions is Greece, which was yesterday to begin a nighttime curfew after its leader said the country had been overwhelmed by a “tsunami” of infections.
New York was the early epicenter of US’ COVID-19 outbreak, but hotspots have since popped up across the country, leaving practically no region in the US unaffected.
On Thursday, the US’ third-biggest city, Chicago, issued a new stay-at-home advisory, with the mayor calling on its 2.7 million people to scrap Thanksgiving plans and avoid travel.
“Every single one of us needs to step up and ‘Protect Chicago’ right now, or 2020 could go from bad to worse,” a note on the city’s Web site said.
More than 1,000 people are dying every day from COVID-19 in the US, according to data from the COVID Tracking Project.
In embattled North Dakota, the governor has authorized COVID-19 positive medics who do not have symptoms to keep working in virus wards.
The world received a dose of much-needed hope this week when US drug giant Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech said that their vaccine was 90 percent effective.
Top US government scientist Anthony Fauci welcomed the news on Thursday, saying that the “cavalry” was on its way, but warned people not to let mask wearing, distancing and other measures slip.
Speaking to a London think tank by video link, the leading expert on infectious diseases said that another vaccine is “literally on the threshold of being announced,” a comment widely interpreted to mean one developed by US biotech firm Moderna.
The vaccines would not arrive in time to prevent tens of thousands more deaths.
In Greece the number of daily cases has doubled in the past two weeks to almost 3,000 and the government is facing accusations of “criminal negligence” by the opposition for its response to the crisis.
“The next few weeks will be extremely critical,” Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said on Thursday during a heated parliamentary debate.
Greeks can no longer travel without authorization sent by text message, and the government has moved up a notch with the imposition from yesterday of a night from 9pm to 5am.
Greece has seen 909 deaths and 63,000 infections among its population of 10.9 million, the vast majority in the past four months.
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