Europe on alert.
England and Scotland reinstated containment on Tuesday in the face of the acceleration of the Covid-19 pandemic, which Germany is also struggling to contain, opting in turn for an extension and tightening of restrictions until January 31 .
Faced with an alarming progression of the new variant of the coronavirus, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson decided on Monday evening the total reconfinement of England.
Already applied to three quarters of the English population, confinement has been extended to the whole province and tightened, with the closure of schools.
If, legally, containment is to go into effect at 12:01 a.m. GMT on Wednesday, Boris Johnson called on the population to follow the rules immediately.
"In early March, we should be able to lift some of these restrictions, but not necessarily all," warned Michael Gove, responsible for coordinating the action of the British government.
Restrictions also in Scotland and Germany
Scotland has also entered a similar lockdown for at least all of January.
Northern Ireland and Wales, already confined after Christmas, have decided to leave the children at home.
The United Kingdom, which deplores more than 75,000 deaths, is one of the countries in Europe most bereaved by the pandemic.
The variant that rages on its soil has worsened the trend, with more than 50,000 new infections per day, and even nearly 59,000 on Monday.
Germany, too, decided on Tuesday to extend and strengthen its partial containment until January 31.
Most non-food stores, bars, restaurants, cultural, leisure and school facilities will remain closed, and meetings are only permitted with one person from outside the household.
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"The measures that we have decided are drastic", admitted German Chancellor Angela Merkel, justifying them by the expansion of the new variant of the virus.
It's "a race against time," she added.
German government criticized
In this country, the threshold of 1,000 daily deaths was crossed for the first time on December 30 (35,500 deaths in total), and the management of the second wave is now arousing criticism.
The daily Die Welt speaks of a "great failure", and voices are raised to criticize the slowness of vaccinations, while more than 264,000 elderly people and caregivers had received Monday a first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
The daily Bild accuses the government of having "relied too much on the European Union" to procure vaccines, and of favoring the only product Pfizer-BioNTech.
Vigilance in Europe
Denmark, where the number of cases is doubling every week, is also tightening the screw, only allowing, from January 6, gatherings of up to 5 people, against 10 currently.
And the Danes should expect the measure, as well as the closure of schools, bars, restaurants and non-essential shops, in force since last month, to be extended or even toughened on January 17.
"You can already prepare for it", warned the head of government, Mette Frederiksen on Tuesday.
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Belgium officially began its vaccination campaign in retirement homes on Tuesday, after a test phase that involved 700 people last week.
The Netherlands, on the other hand, advanced the start of their vaccination campaign by two days to Wednesday, becoming the last in the EU to launch.
