Global rethink on measures as drunks run riot
Drunken celebrations on English pub reopening night and US beach closures prompted a global rethink on Sunday of coronavirus measures during the summer holiday season.
Hopes of the sun making the new disease go away are fading as the US racks up record daily infection numbers and quarantines return to parts of Europe.
Cases are also rising fast in India while Iran recorded its highest single daily death toll and Madagascar was forced to lock down its capital because of a new spike.
The latest batch of bad news is confronting governments with the pains of calibrating a response that is both safe and sufficient to get stalled economies going and mentally exhausted people out of their homes after months of lockdowns.
Saturday presented the twin tests of England’s pub culture resuming after a three-month hiatus and the US marking its July 4 celebrations under the leadership of virus-weary US President Donald Trump.
The head of the police federation for England and Wales said the sight of thousands of people thronging the streets of London’s Soho nightlife district made it clear “that drunk people can’t/won’t socially distance.”
“We dealt with anti-social behavior, naked men… happy drunks, angry drunks, fights, more angry drunks,” John Apter said in a viral tweet.
Apter’s comments put UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government on the defensive and his handling of the entire crisis under renewed scrutiny.
British Health Secretary Matt Hancock insisted that “from what I’ve seen, although there’s some pictures to the contrary, very, very largely people have acted responsibly.”
Britain’s infection numbers are falling and any new spike from the big night out could undermine Johnson’s optimistic message of the worst being in the past.
His government has already been forced to impose a partial lockdown on the city of Leicester and is watching infection rates trending at uncomfortably high levels in London and other parts of the UK.
The mood in Spain is even grimmer after two separate outbreaks saw 200,000 people put under lockdown in the northeastern Catalonia region on Saturday and another 70,000 in the northwestern Galicia region on Sunday.
Spaniards endured one of the world’s toughest lockdowns in which people were confined to their homes unless they could provide the police with a valid excuse for stepping out.
Very similar measures in Italy managed to contain that outbreak to the richer northern regions without a second rebound.
Members of staff at the Leeds General Infirmary gesture to their colleagues from the street as they all participate in a national NHS (National Health Service) celebration clap outside the hospital in Leeds on Sunday, to mark its 72nd anniversary. Photo: AFP
