France, Germany and England impose new lockdowns

People are tired in France where President Emanuel Macron imposed the country’s second nationwide lockdown beginning Friday to combat a resurgence of the coronavirus outbreak in Europe, says Parisian videographer Joseph Savage.

“There was a kind of united front the last time around – people were excited to do this together,” Savage, 34, told CNBC in an interview. “We know that we have to do it again, but the general consensus is that people are fed up and a bit sad to go through it again and not knowing when it’s going to end.”

As the United States teeters on the edge of what some say is the start of a dark winter with roughly 90,000 new Covid-19 cases per day, Europe is already seeing an “astronomical” number of new cases and deaths, prompting governments to roll out strict lockdown measures to slow the spread. Like the U.S., pandemic fatigue has set in across Europe where residents say pubs and bars in the U.K. and France have been packed before the lockdowns took effect. It’s led to a resurgence in the virus across Europe and America where people miss human contact and have grown weary of working in isolation for months on end.

The worsening outbreak in Europe is starting to strain hospital systems there, which epidemiologists worry will happen in the U.S. in the coming weeks. Over the past seven days, France reported an average of more than 31,000 new cases a day on Tuesday following a record of 53,464 average new cases on Sunday, according to a CNBC analysis of data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. The United Kingdom has averaged more than 22,347 new cases per day over the previous week, Hopkins data shows. Italy reported a record 27,864 average new cases on Tuesday, up 58% from the previous week, according to the data.

Germany reported a seven-day average of 17,048 new cases Monday, a new record and up by a whopping 63% compared with a week ago, according to Hopkins data. The steep rise led Chancellor Angela Merkel to announce a new “partial lockdown” last week to avoid overwhelming hospitals. Bars, theaters and clubs will be closed with restaurants limited to carryout and delivery service.

France, Germany and England impose new lockdowns as pandemic fatigue seeps in across Europe and Covid cases soar, CNBC, Nov 4