After nCoV infections fell thanks to months of strict restrictions in the spring, European leaders quickly accelerated the reopening of society to try to spur economic recovery.
As a result, a second wave of infections is spreading across the continent, posing the risk that Europe will have to live with high infection rates next year.
Gendarmes patrolled Paris on the night of October 17 to ensure the curfew.
`People think the situation is under control but it’s not,` said Rafael Bengoa, co-director of the Institute for Strategy and Health in Bilbao, Spain.
European countries are trying to walk a middle path, not completely suppressing the virus while not fully opening up their economies – a test of how to control the pandemic without infringing too much on civil liberties.
Most are experimenting with imposing local restrictions on virus hotspots.
`It’s very difficult,` said Lawrence Freedman, a professor at King’s College London.
The race to return to normal life has caused the epidemic to flare up again.
`The authorities prioritize the economy over health, they think nothing will happen in the summer,` said Saúl Ares, a researcher at the National Center for Biotechnology of the Spanish National Research Council.
That leaves leaders now with no choice but to reimpose restrictions to slow the spread of the virus.
Overall, European countries are better able to cope with the pandemic than they were in March.
But even Italy, which was seriously affected by Covid-19 early on and was more cautious than neighboring countries in opening up, has begun to see infections increase sharply again.
Germany’s infection rate is also starting to rise, even though it has a good testing system, a strong medical industrial base, and has contained the virus over the summer.
But in some cases, European governments have no choice but to reopen and hope for a vaccine or some cure by the fall.
The 27 EU countries and Britain reported an average of 280 coronavirus cases per million people a day last week, according to data from the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control.
France reported a daily average of more than 29,000 new infections last week.
One of the factors causing the number to jump is increased testing.
nCoV spreads through social contact.
Some countries have actively encouraged people to return to normal life.
Although countries have expanded testing capacity, serious problems remain, including slow time to return results due to limited laboratory capacity.
Contact tracing apps are also ineffective.
Government support for quarantined people is not systematic.
One big difference in the second wave is that public support for governments’ handling of the pandemic is waning in many countries, leading many to question the latest rounds of restrictions as unsustainable.
`If many people don’t trust what they’re being asked to do, resentment will smolder and eventually explode, and people will stop following the rules,` said Robert Dingwall, professor emeritus of sociology.
Faced with this, governments are wary of re-imposing strict lockdowns, pinning their hopes instead on a series of softer measures.
Infectious disease experts acknowledge that a nationwide lockdown is a harsh measure and that localized restrictions can be effective if officials explain it clearly to the public and they are implemented effectively.
`Living with viruses is a process of trying many methods to find the best way,` said Graham Medley, professor of infectious disease modeling at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.