BUDAPEST: Hungary’s hospitals are under “extraordinary” pressure from rising coronavirus infections, its surgeon general said yesterday, as the country became a hotspot in the third wave of a pandemic that has hit Europe hard.
Vienna and two other provinces in eastern Austria will go back into lockdown for several days over Easter in a bid to ease the growing strain on intensive care wards from rising coronavirus infections, Austria’s health minister said yesterday.
The Finnish government has proposed locking down residents of five cities, including the capital Helsinki, and only allowing people to leave their homes for limited reasons.
The French government is ready to take tougher measures if current restrictions to limit the spread of the coronavirus fail, Health Minister Olivier Veran has said.
Poland reported a record number of new cases just shy of 30,000 and the government mulled sending patients to different regions to help hospitals cope.
Meanwhile, German Chancellor Angela Merkel reversed course on a so-called ‘Easter rest’ yesterday, after widespread criticism over the tightened lockdown that was announced just a day earlier.
“The mistake is mine and mine alone,” Merkel said during a Press conference. “I regret it deeply, and I ask our citizens for forgiveness.”
