The unwinding of restrictions will be gradual, with factories resuming production well before restaurants and bars can reopen.
Photo: vincenzo pinto/Agence France-Presse/Getty ImagesEurope is getting ready to reopen, slowly.
Italy, Austria and Denmark are among the first countries to plot the gradual unwinding of their lockdowns against the coronavirus epidemic. Their experiences will show the path ahead for hundreds of millions of other Europeans living under social-distancing restrictions.
The U.S. government is also starting to consider how it will relax its social-distancing guidelines, which run through April. Anthony Fauci, pandemic adviser to President Donald Trump, has said it will be a gradual process there too.
The unwinding of restrictions will be gradual, with factories resuming production well before restaurants and bars resume service or people can gather at public events.
After suppressing the pandemic’s first, big wave, the next phase will be about managing a continuing but, countries hope, much lower level of contagion. Government plans involve ample use of face masks, large-scale testing, cellphone apps to help contain transmission and hospitals dedicated to treating the infected.
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Italy, which has been fighting the coronavirus since late February and has Europe’s strictest social-distancing measures in place, will be among the first to test the terrain of life after lockdown.
Some factories that were forced to close are expected to get a green light in the coming days to start up next week, according to scientific advisers to the Rome government.
But Italy’s reopening will involve many steps. It could be at least another month before residents are allowed to freely leave their homes. And even then, many restrictions will continue. The government is still working on the details.
“Phase two is a necessary phase in which we will have to learn to coexist with the virus, because the virus won’t disappear,” said Roberto Speranza, Italy’s health minister. “We have to rethink how we will organize our social life, our manufacturing and our public health-care system in such a way that allows us to completely exit the lockdown. It will be very gradual.”
On Monday, Austria became the first European country to announce a detailed road map for lifting the lockdown. Restrictions will loosen from April 14 when shops below a certain size will be allowed to reopen.
The Czech Republic, which also acted early and aggressively against the outbreak, said it would start reopening some shops on Thursday.
Denmark said it would start reopening businesses after Easter. “This will probably be a bit like walking the tightrope…we must take one cautious step at a time,” said Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen.
Norway said it would gradually relax its restrictions starting on April 20. “Together we have taken control of the virus and so we can open up society little by little,” Prime Minister Erna Solberg told reporters on Tuesday.
German officials and economists have been publicly discussing how and when to restart the economy. Above, the deserted Brandenburg Gate, Berlin, Germany.
Photo: fabrizio bensch/ReutersThe news from Austria and other countries puts pressure on other European leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, to provide a road map for lifting the restrictions on their economies.
Ms. Merkel told a news conference on Monday that Germany wasn’t yet ready for relaxing the measures. But German officials and economists have been publicly discussing how and when to restart the economy. “We must undergo a process of cautious normalization in the coming weeks and months,” said Christoph M. Schmidt, an economic adviser to the German government.
Avoiding a second wave of mass infections is a major concern across Europe.
Italy is planning to further boost testing capabilities and increase medical staff across the country, testing those who show even mild symptoms and isolating them if needed. It also plans to use mobile-phone apps to identify the close contacts of those who test positive and connect them with local health-care authorities.
Some virologists are advocating widespread antibody testing to identify asymptomatic people and make it easier for companies to reopen, an option that Italy’s government is considering. Some politicians have suggested allowing only people who have antibodies to the virus to return to work, while others have proposed that only those under a certain age should be allowed to return.
Some Italian regions have made face masks compulsory for people who leave their homes but the government hasn’t yet signaled that will be rolled out nationally.
Flare-ups of new cases in some countries that seemingly had tamed the virus, including Singapore, have shown how difficult it will be to halt new infections entirely unless and until an effective vaccine becomes widely available, something experts say will take time.
Italy’s lockdown has slowed the rate of infections. The number of people in intensive care has begun to decline. Daily confirmed deaths are also trending down but remain high: 604 people died on Tuesday, bringing the total to 17,127. The average number of people that virus carriers infect is now under one, government scientific advisers say.
But epidemiologists say Italy won’t reach zero infections soon—and warn that loosening social-distancing measures could easily cause new cases to flare up again.
“We must always remember that regardless of the decline in the number of new cases, this virus will remain among the population,” said Giovanni Rezza, the chief epidemiologist at Italy’s National Health Institute, the country’s top disease control body. “We need to engage in a long fight. This is just a first battle that we are confronting with a degree of success.”
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All nonessential industrial and commercial activity in Italy has been stopped for almost three weeks. Some companies have said they are ready to fire up their factories as soon as the government gives the all clear.
“We have agreed with unions and the government on a very rigorous security protocol,” said Nicola de Cardenas, who has a company that makes industrial refrigeration units and is chairman of a local employers’ association. “We are still in time to save our economic ecosystem and make it stronger than before, but we don’t have much time.”
Companies that were allowed to continue working, such as those in the food industry and those working on infrastructure projects deemed critical, have had to put in place new safety measures.
Salini Impregilo, one of the companies building a new metro line in Milan, on Wednesday said it had restarted work on the project. New measures include body temperature checks at the start of the workday and at lunchtime, the use of face masks, frequent cleaning and disinfection of the work site and common areas, and guaranteeing a one-meter (3.3 feet) distance between people at all times.
Similar practices are likely across Italy as the economy reopens.
Schools will stay shut a while longer. Italy’s education minister this week outlined how exams will be administered remotely if schools don’t reopen before the end of the academic year, which is in mid-June for most institutions, but didn’t rule out a reopening.
Mr. Speranza, the health minister, and other officials have indicated they want to keep people at home at least until May 4 so that there isn’t a mass exodus over the May 1 holiday weekend.
Write to Eric Sylvers at eric.sylvers@wsj.com, Margherita Stancati at margherita.stancati@wsj.com and Bojan Pancevski at bojan.pancevski@wsj.com
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2020-04-08 16:07:42Z
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