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France extended curfews to around two thirds of its population today and Belgium's foreign minister was taken into intensive care with Covid-19, as the second wave of the pandemic surged across Europe. French Health Minister Olivier Veran (right) and French Prime Minister Jean Castex at a media conference in Paris, announcing the changeover of several departments to "maximum alert" and new curfew measures in order to curb the spread of Covid-19. Photo: AFP French Prime Minister Jean Castex announced a curfew imposed last week on Paris and eight other cities would be extended to 38 more departments, confining 46 million out of the country's 67m population to their homes from 9pm to 6am. "A second wave of the coronavirus epidemic is now under way in France and Europe. The situation is very serious," Castex said at a news conference. Shortly after the measures were announced, French health authorities reported a record 41,622 new confirmed cases, bringing the cumulative total to 999,043. According to a Reuters tally, Thursday saw the highest total of infections reported in a single day across the world, at 422,835. Slovakia will impose a partial lockdown to halt the spread of coronavirus infections, Prime Mister Igor Matovic said today. The lockdown will be imposed from 24 October until 2 November. In Spain, which this week became the first European country to pass 1 million cases, Health Minister Salvador Illa said the epidemic was now "out of control" in many areas. Regional authorities debated a curfew but stopped short of taking a decision. After Europe appeared to have gained a measure of control over the epidemic following the dramatic lockdowns of March and April, a surge in cases over recent weeks has put the continent back at the heart of the crisis. While hospitalisations and deaths have not so far overwhelmed health systems as they did during the initial wave early this year, authorities in many countries worry the situation is rapidly reaching a tipping point. Germany, which reported more than 10,000 daily cases for the first time, extended travel warnings for Switzerland, Ireland, Poland, most of Austria and Italian regions including Rome. "We still have a chance to slow a further spread of the virus," Lothar Wieler, of the Robert Koch Institute, Germany's infectious diseases agency, said in Berlin. More than 5.3m people across Europe have contracted the disease and over 204,000 have died, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. That compares with 8.3m cases in the United States and 7.7m in India. Belgian Foreign Minister Sophie Wilmes went into intensive care today, just a day after German Health Minister Jens Spahn tested positive. The resurgence over recent weeks stands in contrast to several countries in Asia, from China to South Korea or New Zealand, where draconian lockdowns and rigourous contact tracing have helped contain the disease. 'We are swamped' Grappling with the enormous costs of the coronavirus, Europe's leaders are desperate to avoid a repeat of the blanket lockdowns that shut down their economies in the spring. As cases have surged and health services have come under increasing pressure, they have been forced to impose and expand local restrictions aimed at reducing public gatherings to ever wider areas. Italy's three most populous regions - Lombardy around Milan, Lazio, around Rome and Campania around Naples - have already imposed overnight curfews. Britain today also tightened restrictions on three more areas. Amid the growing public alarm, Germany's statistics office noted that sales of toilet paper rose almost 90 percent last week from pre-crisis levels with almost equally sharp jumps in sales of disinfectants and soap. Only Sweden, a European outlier which has relied largely on voluntary measures to promote social distancing, was an exception, declaring senior citizens no longer need to isolate themselves given lower Covid infection rates than in spring. As the crisis has intensified, much of the public goodwill seen in the first phase of lockdowns has evaporated and central governments have engaged in angry spats with local authorities from Manchester to Madrid over issues ranging from health and welfare to transport and schools. With winter coming, health services are looking ahead with apprehension as the wave of Covid patients coincides with the usual seasonal respiratory illnesses. "We are already swamped," said Bruno Megarbane, head of intensive care at the Lariboisiere hospital in Paris. "So, indeed, there is the fear that we will face a very difficult situation." - Reuters

Poland's Constitutional Tribunal has ruled that abortion due to foetal defects is unconstitutional, banning the most common of the few legal grounds for pregnancy termination in the predominantly Catholic country. Woman's rights activist and co-founder of All-Poland's Women Strike, Marta Lempart (left) argues with a pro-life supporter as a protest and counter-protest took place prior to the Polish Constitutional Tribunal issuing its decision on abortion. Photo: AFP / NurPhoto After the ruling goes into effect, abortion will be only be permissible in Poland in the case of rape, incest or a threat to the mother's health and life, which make up only around 2 percent of legal terminations conducted in recent years. "(A provision which) legalises eugenic practices in the field of the right to life of an unborn child and makes the right to life of an unborn child dependent on his or her health, ... is inconsistent ... with the constitution," said Julia Przylebska, head of the Constitutional Tribunal. Conservative values have played a growing role in public life in Poland since the nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) came into power five years ago on a promise to defend what it sees as the nation's traditional, Catholic character. Curbing access to abortion has been a long-standing ambition of the party, but it has stepped back from previous legislative proposals amid widespread public backlash. A group of right-wing lawmakers asked the Tribunal to rule on the legality of aborting foetuses with abnormalities in December 2019. "Today Poland is an example for Europe, it's an example for the world," said Kaja Godek, a member of the "Stop Abortion" public initiative, a separate group. Women's rights and opposition groups reacted with dismay. "The worst-case scenario that could have come true has come true. It is a devastating sentence that will destroy the lives of many women and many families," said lawyer Kamila Ferenc who works with an NGO helping women denied abortion. "It will especially force the poor to give birth to children against their will. Either they have no chance of surviving, or they have no chance of an independent existence, or they will die shortly after giving birth." The Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Dunja Mijatovic, called it a "sad day for women's rights". "Removing the basis for almost all legal abortions in Poland amounts to a ban and violates human rights. Today's ruling of the Constitutional Court means underground/abroad abortions for those who can afford and even greater ordeal for all others." Politicized courts? Critics say the Constitutional Tribunal may have acted on the party's behalf. While the Tribunal is nominally independent, most of its judges have been appointed by PiS, leading it to be dubbed a "pseudo-tribunal" by some. "To throw in the subject of abortion and produce a ruling by a pseudo-tribunal in the middle of a raging pandemic is more than cynicism. It is political wickedness," said Donald Tusk, the president of the European People's Party and a former prime minister of Poland. Poland's opposition said the tribunal was carrying out the political will of the ruling party leader, specifically. PiS denies trying to influence the court or taking advantage of the pandemic to push through the changes. Abortion rights activists say access to the procedure was often declined in recent years in Poland even in cases when it would be legal. Many doctors in Poland, which already had some of the strictest abortion rules in Europe, exercise their legal right to refuse to terminate pregnancies on religious grounds. Some say they are pressured into doing so by their superiors. Maria Kurowska, an MP with United Poland, a party in the ruling coalition with Law and Justice said: "We are glad with what the Constitutional Tribunal ruled because one can not kill a child for being sick. This is not a foetus, it is a child." - Reuters