This Is What Some Of Europe's Biggest Cities Look Like As Lockdown Measures Start To Ease
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As the death toll across some of Europe’s worst-affected countries continues to fall, residents are carefully taking their first steps outside for more than a month.
Italy, Spain and France have all suffered more than 20,000 fatalities each, and have been living under some of the world’s most restrictive lockdown rules since the start of the crisis.
Tens of millions of people have been forced to remain inside to help stop the spread of coronavirus, with families split up and businesses shuttered.
But even as employees tentatively return to work and shops start to open, stark warnings have been issued about what needs to be done to avoid a second wave.
In Italy – the hardest-hit country in Europe, with almost 29,000 deaths – millions of people returned to work on Monday morning, easing some aspects of the world’s longest lockdown.
Around 4.5m people have now returned to work, construction can resume and relatives can reunite.
“I woke up at 5.30am – I was so excited,” said Maria Antonietta Galluzzo, a grandmother taking her three-year-old grandson for a walk in Rome’s Villa Borghese park, the first time they had seen each other in eight weeks.
“He has grown by this much,” she said, holding up three horizontal fingers.
The easing comes as the daily rate of new Covid-19 cases worldwide has been sitting in a 2% to 3% range over the past week, down from a peak of around 13% in mid-March.
But Italian PM Giuseppe Conte said his country, where the coronavirus has killed almost 29,000 people and more than 1,000 new cases are reported daily, was still in the “full throes of the pandemic”.
Friends in the country are still barred from meeting up, most shops must stay shut until May 18, and schools, and cinemas and theatres remain closed indefinitely.
“It is good to be back, but the world has totally changed,” said Gianluca Martucci,...
