New lockdowns in Europe as Covid cases spikes

In Europe, vaccination campaign has been hit by delays and the number of infections is rising in many countries.Lockdowns are once again coming into force, as governments take action against a third wave. Coronavirus surge has forced many European countries to go for more strict restrictions. Even the goverments will not loosen the restrictions for Easter. Italy has entered a strict three-day lockdown to try to prevent a surge in Covid-19 cases over Easter. All regions are now in the red zone, the highest tier of restrictions. The country battles a third wave, with about 20,000 new cases a day. Non-essential movement is banned, but people are allowed to share an Easter meal at home with two other adults. Churches are also open, but worshippers are being told to attend services within their own regions.The Italian government also announced it was placing 70,000 extra police officers on surveillance nationwide, in order to enforce the lockdown rules.For the second year, Pope Francis will deliver his Easter message to an empty St Peter's Square. Italy's restrictions come as countries across Europe try to control a surge in cases of the virus, while struggling with a delayed vaccine rollout. More than 110,328 people in total have died of the coronavirus in Italy, and there have been 3.6 million confirmed infections. Italy is now facing a third wave of Covid-19. On 1 April, it registered 23,634 new cases and 501 deaths.

As per reports,situation is not good in other European countris also. Meanwhile the World Health Organization (WHO) criticised Europe's "unacceptably slow" vaccine rollout, and said the situation in the region is now worse than it has been for several months. "Vaccines present our best way out of this pandemic... However, the rollout of these vaccines is unacceptably slow," WHO director for Europe Hans Kluge said in a statement. We must speed up the process by ramping up manufacturing, reducing barriers to administering vaccines, he said and added that EU countries would have to impose lockdowns and other measures to compensate for the delays. According to the WHO, only 10% of the nearly 900 million people in the region have had a single dose of coronavirus vaccine. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen acknowledged the EU's vaccine failures, saying: "We were late to authorise. We were too optimistic when it came to massive production and perhaps too confident that what we ordered would actually be delivered on time."

France has also inposes a month long lockdown. This is the third national lockdoun the France has imposed. French schools are moving back to remote learning, and all non-essential shops have now closed. People are banned from travelling more than 10km (six miles) from home without good reason. One of the hardest hit countries in the EU, the Czech Republic has now tightened its lockdown.The new measures include closing nurseries and schools for younger children and those with disabilities, a ban on movement between districts and mandatory mass testing for employees of factories and companies that stay open.

Belgium is in a four week Easter lockdown.Primary and secondary schools,as well as universities, are closed until 19 April.Non-essential shops are open, but only by appointment. Hairdressers, beauty salons and massage salons are closed.All non-essential travel remains banned. In Netherland also,Lockdown rules have been extended until 20 April.The curfew has also been extended, but from 31 March it will start one hour later, from 22:00 until 04:30.The government says people should not book holidays abroad until at least the middle of May. Germany has extended restrictions until April 18 but Easter lockdown cancelled.Further re-openings will also be halted in areas where infections exceed 100 new cases per 100,000 people over a seven-day period.People must now wear clinical masks, such as single-use surgical masks or filtering face-piece respirators (known as FFP2 masks), in shops and on public transport.