Europe Returns to Lockdowns With No Guarantee They’ll Work Again
- Government leaders hold videoconference on pandemic response
- 27-nation bloc grapples with alarming jump in virus infections
Germany and France will restrict movement for at least a month to control the spread of the virus.
Photographer: Chesnot/Getty Images EuropeA virtual summit of European Union leaders has morphed into a crisis meeting after its two biggest economies imposed the kind of harsh restrictions many had sworn not to do. It’s a moment of reckoning with a virus that in its second incarnation caught the bloc on the back foot.
On a video conference on Thursday, there will be the inevitable sense that leaders were wrong to think the worst was behind them and that the pandemic could be contained with targeted measures. Every day brings a record in infections, and member states -- in a panic -- are grasping for answers. They’re unclear that what worked the first time around will work again. Covid-19 isn’t as deadly, yet the cases are spiraling. Partial lockdowns are still a half-way house.