The Second Wave: How long can Europe remain in lockdown before the people rise in revolt?

It would be an exaggeration to say that the anxiety gripping Europe as it confronts a second wave of the coronavirus is about to mutate into full-blooded hysteria. But the danger, previously asymptomatic, is there, bubbling beneath the surface. The frustration and anger of 450 million people who haven’t been able to live a normal life since March can only be held in check for so long.

The Continent – not to be confused in this instance with the European Union – is in a state of incipient revolt.

In France, the number of new Covid infections has reached an all-time high, with the situation in Paris described as “particularly devastating”. With a “very large wave” of patients requiring hospitalisation expected in the days ahead, the regional health authority has called on health workers to be ready to “go into battle”.

The capital, in common with a number of other large cities, including Marseille and Bordeaux, has been shuttered. Bars have been closed, as well as indoor sports areas, swimming pools and gyms. Restaurants are only permitted to remain open with strict customer protection in place. Supermarkets have to provide four square meters of space for every shopper. Working from home has again been prioritised by the mayor, Anne Hidalgo.

Officially, France’s state of “maximum alert” will only be reached when the number of new infections hits 250 per 100,000 inhabitants. But in the capital, the rate is now hovering at 500 per 100,000, with Covid patients occupying more than a third of all intensive care beds. Some 3,500 new cases are being confirmed every day, three-and-a-half times the number reported in the first week of September.

In Germany – which got off lightly first time round due to early preventative action and the ready availability of masks and personal protection equipment (PPE) – the authorities are bracing for a sharp rise in the infection rate and the likelihood that a number of cities will have to go into lockdown.

There is a reported sense among ordinary citizens that the enormous civic discipline they displayed throughout the initial outbreak of the pandemic may be sorely tested this time round. One problem is that cities and states are vying with each other to stay safe, almost as if, in health terms, we are back to pre-Bismarck times. Restrictions on who can travel where, and who from one territory can book a hotel in another, are starting to grate. Test and tracing fatigue is also a factor. The official app, Risiko-Ermittlung, which was introduced in June and downloaded more than 18 million times, is often ignored these days, especially by the young.

In Berlin, the federal health minister, Jens Spahn, said on Thursday that he and his scientific advisers were extremely concerned about the recent surge in corona cases. Young people, in particular, were becoming infected because they had come to believe they were invulnerable, “which they are not”. In Germany, the generations were not separated from each other. The message was that the virus was not about individuals, it was about protecting everybody. The pandemic, he said, “is a test for our society”.

Not just in Berlin, but also in Frankfurt, the financial and banking capital, the numbers of new cases have already exceeded the figure of 50 per 100,000 inhabitants that in Germany is regarded as critical. There is said to be chaos in high-risk areas, such as Berlin’s tightly-packed Neukölin district, home to more than a quarter of a million mainly Muslim immigrants, where the incidence of Covid has reached an “alarming” 114.3.

In the spring and early summer, Italy was regarded as the epicentre of the disease in Europe – a distinction that soon passed to Spain, Belgium and, ultimately, the UK. Rome’s feuding politicians suspended hostilities so that their representatives could take the nation’s well-oiled begging bowl to Brussels in pursuit of the “solidarity” –­ i.e. billions of euros – it needed to secure its recovery. Six months on, their pockets bulging with promissory notes, the same leadership is now facing up to a second wave of the virus which, while serious, looks to be no worse than that experienced elsewhere.

The country’s hard-pressed health system reported 4,458 new cases on Thursday, but just 22 deaths. At the same time, the number of tests rose to a record 128,098 – three thousand more than on Wednesday. A total of 65,952 Italians were receiving treatment, including 3,295 in hospital, 358 of whom were in intensive care.

All this in a country of 59 million people.

So how terrified are Italians that they may die of Covid? Not especially, it seems. This week, Dr Andrea Crisanti, head of the department of molecular medicine at the Univrsity of Padua, complained that he had organised a tripling in the number of tests available in his area – “and no one turned up”.

Instead, one suspects, Italians have decided that it isn’t happening. They may not expect a return any time soon of la dolce vita, but nor are they ready to behave for much longer like a nation under enemy occupation.

Spain (population 47 million) looks once more to be among the worst-affected nations. Its Covid statistics makes for grim reading: 884,381 cases since March and 32,688 deaths. The graph of infection in Spain, that fell sharply in the summer months, shot upwards again in August and now appears almost vertical.

Madrid, which has recorded 870,000 cases of the virus since March out of a population of 4.5 million, has been hobbled. More than 40% of its intensive care capacity is already devoted to Covid patients and the rate continues to rise. The right-wing regional administration, under pressure from Madrileños, tried this week to scale back one of the most all-embracing lockdowns in Europe, but was stymied by the federal government, a shaky Socialist construct that has since declared a state of emergency. Freedom of movement within the capital is more severely restricted than ever, with controls established on roads leading in and out of the city.

Other population centres look set to follow, with Leon and Palencia already isolated. Schools across Spain mostly remain open, as they do in Europe generally, but are operating under strict regulation. Smoking in the street within two metres of anyone else has been banned nationwide. Nightclubs and late-night bars have been closed, and restaurants – ­ this being Spain – have been ordered to close early, which is to say no later than 1am.

How long all of this can go on without some sort of popular uprising is impossible to say.

The situation in Belgium – the country in Europe hardest hit in April – is equally serious, but at least Belgians seem to know who to blame. According to Emir Kir, the mayor of Saint-Josse, one of the capital’s most densely populated boroughs, the central government’s communications strategy has been “catastrophic”. It wasn’t the municipalities that were responsible for the health crisis, he said this week, it was the federal state.

“Sometimes you have to wait four or five days for a test result. Everyone knows that tracing is inefficient. People are not contacted – they don’t follow the rules. Quarantine is not mandatory. We are in a situation where the rules laid down by the federal government are not really applied. I have not received any information on a coronavirus cluster in my town. Not one. How do you expect me to be able to act locally?”

All bars and cafes in the Brussels regions were ordered to close on Thursday and will remain shut for at least the next month. The consumption of alcohol in public places has also been banned, and restaurants can only serve wine to socially-distanced bone fide diners. The city’s police complained that they were having a hard time enforcing the regulations on drinking because of the blurred distinction between what was a bar and what was a restaurant.

Keen to be seen doing something, the Government this month appointed Pedro Facon, a leading public health professional, to be its “Covid Commissioner,” charged with ensuring the smoothest possible cooperation between the centre and the country’s notoriously fractious regions and language groups. One of his first tasks will be to improve the lag-times in contact tracing. On Monday, in French-speaking Wallonia, call centre workers on managed to get in touch with only 1,026 of the 2,734 people they urgently needed to talk to.

In Flemish-speaking Aalst, meanwhile, the mayor, Christoph d’Haese said that his area hospital could not accept any more coronavirus patients sent to them from Brussels. “The limits of medical solidarity have been reached,” he said.

At some point between now and eternity, it is thought likely that a useful study will be made of the impact of Covid in Sweden, which chose not to lock down and carried on with life more or less as usual, albeit with masks, social distancing and (one imagines) compulsive hand-washing. What we do know is that with the country’s fabled social safety net beginning to shred under the weight of cases, the elderly have emerged as the most obvious victims. Of the 5,902 deaths from Covid reported in Sweden up to Thursday, 2,694 – more than 45% – were living in care homes.

Looking at Europe as a whole, it is difficult not to conclude that the second wave of the coronavrius, though widely anticipated, has somehow taken everyone by surprise. Just when people thought it was safe to go out for a drink, they have been told to barricade themselves in their homes and watch Netflix. From Lisbon to Warsaw and from Helsinki to Palermo, people – especially the young and those whose jobs are at most risk – are bored, exasperated and exhausted and starting to think enough is enough, maybe it’s time to just open up and see what happens.

Needless to say, if governments give in to this upsurge of previously repressed rage, there will be an equal and opposite release of anger and resentment among those who get sick, and their families.

It’s lose-lose for everybody, forever … until it stops.