KUALA LUMPUR, August 11 — The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control has urged member states to implement preventive measures against Covid-19, warning of an increase in cases.
The Guardian reported that Paris, France, has made face masks compulsory, especially in tourist areas. Greece announced a second wave of the Covid-19 outbreak, worrying Italy and Spain.
According to Dr Mike Ryan, the head of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) emergencies programme, Western Europe countries should act quickly to curb the upswing of Covid-19 cases as the virus did not spread in any specific season.
The Paris order on the compulsory masks is applicable to everyone, from 11-years-old, and above and encompasses crowded areas where maintaining physical distance is difficult.
The rule includes places like open-air markets, shopping areas, and places with a large number of cafés and bars, weekend gathering places like banks of the Seine and the Canal St Martin. However, areas around the Eiffel Tower and Champs Élysées were not included in the list.
“The targets are basically places with a lot of people where it’s hard to keep more than a metre apart, and areas where people go to to relax, where distancing measures are being forgotten,” Nicolas Nordman, a city hall safety official, was quoted saying.
He said people who failed to wear masks will be given warning for the first two days and eventually will be given a summons of €135 (RM666). So far, France has recorded 203,000 Covid-19 cases with 30,340 deaths.
The Guardian reported an assistant professor of hygiene and epidemiology at Athens University, Gkikas Magiorkinis, as saying that Greece had reached its peak ability in handling the spread of Covid-19, as the country recorded 203 positive cases on Sunday, its highest number of daily cases since the start of the pandemic.
“We can say that Greece has formally entered a second wave of the epidemic. This is the point that we could win or lose the battle,” he said.
“Unless there is a change in the trend that we are seeing we are likely to propose more measures along the lines we have seen in Poros.”
Following that, the country has announced that clubs, bars and restaurants will be closed at 11 p.m.
According to the Greek health minister, Vassilis Kikilias, the country will announce more precautionary measures as the cases there are on the rise.
Italy saw a sharp increase in Covid-19 cases among people below 18-years-old. The country’s median age of an infected person dropped to 38.
“The average age among those infected has dramatically fallen below 40,” said Italy’s health minister, Roberto Speranza.
New outbreaks were reported in Spain as the country has recorded 323,000 Covid-19 cases with 28,576 deaths.
According to Maria Neira, the WHO’s director of public health and environment, Spain will announce a national lockdown only if it sees a resurgence of cases at an alarming rate, as she claimed that such a scenario did not exist now.
