Loosened lockdowns bring risk of new coronavirus surge

Across the world coronavirus lockdowns are being loosened. But the gentle phasing out of restrictions comes with a risk that a renewed wave of infections will once again place public health infrastructure under strain.

In France on Monday, President Emmanuel Macron announced that the country would be gradually coming out of quarantine. Cafes and restaurants were reopened and travel to and from other EU and EFTA countries is now permitted.

France has continued to see a consistent fall in cases of Covid-19 as well as hospitalisations and deaths. In the last twenty four hours, Le Monde reports, new cases have (at the time of writing) continued to decrease by 24%, new deaths in hospitals have dropped by 31%, and new hospital admissions have declined by 16%.

Many have welcomed the restoration of at least some sense of normality. Yet managing this slow return may prove to be as challenging as combatting the devastating first wave of infections. While deaths have declined notably in  France, they still remain high – and yesterday, Tuesday June 16, saw a small spike of 111 deaths, up from the 25 recorded on the previous day.

One challenge for President Macron revolves around France’s new coronavirus contact tracing app, which relies upon centralised location tracking and threatens to clash with efforts to set up an EU-wide contact-tracing scheme.

And while France may be beginning a process of “déconfinement”, this process will not be uniform across France’s territories. In French Guiana, an overseas department on the Atlantic coast of South America, and in Mayotte, a small island to the north of Madagascar, the picture looks very different.

Here, the state of health emergency will be prolonged in order to combat an explosion of new cases which have erupted. Annick Girardan, the Minister for Overseas Territories, told the National Assembly in Paris today that special measures will remain in place until “the peak of the epidemic has been passed”.

The cautious approach of the French public health authorities comes as a new spike of infections has been witnessed in two of the world’s most populous countries over the last week – China and India.

Beijing reported 31 new cases of Covid-19 on Wednesday June 17, bringing the city’s total to 137 over the past week. This most recent rise comes after a period of almost 60 days when the city’s authorities recorded no locally-transmitted cases.

The locus of the outbreak has been attributed to Beijing’s Xinfandi food market, which supplies 80% of the city’s meat and vegetables.

In response, Beijing’s authorities have acted quickly, fearing a repeat of the disastrous inaction in Wuhan which allowed the wave of infections to spiral out of control at the beginning of the year.

The Communist Party-run China Daily Newspaper has released images of “rescue” teams in hazmat suits disinfecting the city. Schools have been suspended, and residents of at least 27 “high-risk” neighbourhoods have been told that they cannot leave the city. Flights have been cancelled, and railway services severely reduced.

Yet Didier Pittet, Director of the Infection Control Programme at the University Hospital of Geneva, believes that this recent spike should not be blown out of proportion.

In an interview with Le Figaro, he says that “there is no reason to be alarmed. The phenomenon (of a second wave of cases) is even reassuring, because it is shows that the administration of screening and tests remains vigorous”. He believes that Beijing is dealing with “a resumption of contaminations in a confined pocket”, a type of resurgence which has already been effectively combatted in Germany and South Korea.

In India, the situation looks worse. There the official death toll increased by more than 2,000 over Tuesday to Wednesday, bringing the total number of fatalities to 11,903.

Some of this was due to the revision of the official figures from certain key cities in the country. In Delhi yesterday, the local government revised its death toll up from 1,400 to 1,837. Today, a devastating 862 deaths have been added to the revised toll in Mumbai.

In such a vast and diverse landmass as India, it is proving difficult for government at every level to develop uniform policies to outbreaks which vary in their patterns and prevalence according to geography.

Now there are fears, reported by The Hindu, that India’s countryside has been left dangerously exposed to the epidemic. With the country’s cities taking up the bandwidth of already-stretched public services and medical professionals, the 65% of Indians who live in the countryside are currently vulnerable to a major outbreak.