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O’Micron rushes in and Europe returns to shut itself down – or to do so, in various forms and colors – to face the nightmare of finding itself with hospitals under pressure from the latest, treacherous version of COVID. for. But if restrictions are already in place in some medium and small countries (until the lockdown number 3 of Denmark and the Netherlands), further measures have been postponed after Christmas in major countries of the old continent: especially on the New Year. Targeting , led Germany to enforce football matches behind closed doors in the Bundesliga as well as only to announce the actual cancellation from 28 December.

However, for now, we do not proceed in any particular order. Even within the European Union, where 7 other states (Portugal, Greece, Cyprus, Austria, Ireland, Latvia, Sweden) follow the Italian decision – initially by Brussels to the Mario Draghi government – the obligation to swab in the first week of January For any passenger to present to: incorporated within the boundaries of the Union.
Meanwhile, Boris Johnson’s United Kingdom remains the country with the most Omicron cases in this part of the world (another 90,000 today), although the level of increase is now similar to that of France or Germany and relative to the population compared to Denmark or Ireland. in less. ,

But the unstable Prime Minister Tory insists for now on going beyond the soft restrictions reinstated in recent weeks by his so-called ‘Plan B’. The current data do not justify the new action “before Christmas”, he clarified today, although not without repeating – despite the relaunches of nearly a million vaccines a day and a third booster dose on the island – “able to exclude Not having any other solution after 25th December. Indeed, a confirmation of what appeared clear yesterday: that is, that something close – whether it’s a new semi-lockdown or something less – has been postponed, but perhaps only a little. And only for reasons of internal political consensus and economic considerations. A choice with the promise of a new mega package of one billion pounds of public aid earmarked for those sectors of business (primarily pubs and restaurants) already buoyed by the first results of Omicron’s fears; And that still doesn’t reassure various doctors or scientists.

Professor Jeremy Farrar, who cautions on the “dizzy transmission potential” shown so far by the new edition, even the absence of consolidated data on definitive effects on mortality and hospitalization in, allows a maximum of “24- 36”. hours” to decide on some re-introduction of harsh precautionary shutdowns at the last minute.
From Belgium comes, if nothing else, the positive news of the first apparent change towards wave containment thanks to a series of measures adopted in time, but certainly lighter than those implemented by experts. (return of the compulsive mask , interruption of lessons in school, resumption of distance learning for children and adolescents).

Anyway, cleavers have started to fall almost everywhere at New Year’s parties. With the cancellation of large traditional square events such as Trafalgar Square in London or other capitals and cities large and small in Europe and the world. Whereas in Great Britain itself the local governments of Scotland and Wales, led by Liberty and Labour, are taking somewhat more partial steps for England than BoJo currently takes centrally: not only to cancel the celebration of the new to impose Hoggman’s Year’s Eve, a traditional public event in Edinburgh, but in the case of Scotland also limits on attendance at nightclubs and mass gatherings on the order of hundreds of people; Closed doors in stadiums of both the states.

However, everything always starts the week after Christmas.
On the other hand, since Christmas, possible restrictions are set to be triggered in France, where infections recorded with Omicron in Paris have risen to at least a third of the total. Or those announced tonight in Germany by the new Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the focus on spectator stops and New Year’s Eve parties (usually more crowded than birth family reunions) for football matches from the 28th. which this year would reduce household gatherings to a maximum of 10 people: fewer than 14 are excluded, but not without more stringent limits on vaccination. If only because – Angela Merkel’s successor cut short – this year isn’t even “party time.”