(Paris) France reopens its terraces and its museums, Austria its restaurants, New York drops the mask: the population of several Western countries finds a little freedom on Wednesday thanks to a decline in the epidemic, on the contrary of India still plunged into an acute health crisis.
Posted on May 19, 2021 at 6:27 am
Updated at 7:48 a.m.
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After six months of life in slow motion, the French can again since this Wednesday morning eat or have a drink on the terrace, the latter being limited to 50% of their capacity and to six people per table. Restaurants and cafes will have to wait until June 9 to welcome dining room customers.
French President Emmanuel Macron and his Prime Minister Jean Castex took a very high profile coffee on the terrace on Wednesday morning to illustrate, in the words of the Head of State, “a little moment of rediscovered freedom”.
Across France, customers began to sit on the terraces early in the morning. “I like being on the terrace, consuming outside, I missed that”, underlines Gisèle, in Bordeaux (south-west).
“I’ve been waiting for this for a long time,” says Bruno, retired, who reads his newspaper while drinking coffee in a Parisian brasserie.
French cinemas, theaters and museums can once again also welcome the public – masked – with maximum attendance figures. And the start of the curfew is delayed by two hours, from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m.
Cyrian, 24, took his early train to arrive 30 minutes early for the first cinema screening in a Parisian theater. “I was not going to be late for the day of the resumption! “.
This partial lifting of the restrictions was decided in favor of a decrease in the circulation of the virus, which however remains high (around 14,000 new cases per day on average), and a ramp-up of the vaccination campaign in a country where the pandemic has killed 108,000 people.
The return to normal life goes even further in Austria, where restaurants, hotels and places of culture reopen fully on Wednesday.
However, it will be necessary to show a white paw at the entrance of the various places, by carrying out a test on site when possible or by presenting a negative result, proof of vaccination or antibodies.
No more masks in New York
After having been at the epicenter of the pandemic in the spring of 2020 and observed extreme caution in the face of the coronavirus for months, New York marks the lifting of many quantitative capacity restrictions still imposed on Wednesday, especially in restaurants.
The rise in the vaccination rate – over 60% of New Yorkers have received at least one dose – and the drop in the COVID-19 positivity rate, now below 1.5%, have also pushed several large banks like JPMorgan Chase or Goldman Sachs to ring the end of widespread teleworking.
To these relaxations was added the authorization for vaccinated people to no longer wear the mask, even indoors: after a few days of hesitation, the governor of the State of New York ratified this authorization from the federal authorities, to from Wednesday.
But there is some confusion around this authorization, since no one checks whether people not wearing the mask have been vaccinated. Some traders, free to continue to impose the mask on their premises, have every intention of doing so, such as Juan Rosas, manager of a restaurant in Manhattan. “I think it’s too early, they are rushing,” he told AFP.
“Summer of freedom”
End of the crisis also in sight in Quebec, one of the Canadian provinces hardest hit by COVID-19: Prime Minister François Legault announced Tuesday a “summer of freedom” with a gradual lifting of restrictions by the end of June . The curfew will be lifted on May 28 and the wearing of a mask will no longer be compulsory for people vaccinated from June 25.
This hope of Western countries, where vaccination is in full swing, contrasts with the still catastrophic situation in India, where immunization campaigns had to be stopped in several places due to the passage of Cyclone Tauktae, which made at least 33 dead.
India, which has 1.3 billion inhabitants, on Wednesday counted a new record of 4,529 deaths, and 267,334 contaminations in 24 hours, bringing the total toll to 25.5 million cases and 283,248 deaths. Everywhere, hospitals are saturated, nursing staff at the end of their rope, oxygen and medicines are lacking.
The situation is also worrying in Argentina, which on Tuesday recorded record numbers of new cases (35,543) and deaths (745) for a single day.
“Do not give up, we know that we are going through difficult times,” said President Alberto Fernandez, who has promised to speed up vaccination.
In Japan, IOC President Thomas Bach was reassuring by indicating that at least 75% of residents of the Olympic Village for the Tokyo Games “have already been vaccinated or have planned to do so” before the Olympics, while many of Japanese fear that the event will put more pressure on the health system in the Archipelago.
The new coronavirus has killed at least 3.3 million people and infected more than 163 million people worldwide since the end of December 2019, according to a report established Tuesday by AFP.
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