Germany is to preserve Christmas but reimpose tighter rules on social contact before new year as the Omicron variant sweeps across Europe, sparking tougher measures from Sweden to Spain.
The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, met the country’s 16 state leaders on Tuesday to decide on new measures including a ban on gatherings of more than 10 vaccinated people.
Children under 14 are expected to be exempt from the rules, which will not come into effect until 28 December. Unvaccinated people are already only allowed to meet a maximum of two people from outside their own household.
The authorities have scrambled to speed up the country’s booster campaign. They are administering about 1m shots a day but remain dissatisfied with the relatively low proportion of people to have received their first and second doses, which stands at 70.3%.
Rates of new infections and deaths have fallen over the past week, but health experts have repeatedly said this does not mean the situation is easing because figures for daily deaths and hospital admissions remain high.
The Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases has called for “maximum contact restrictions”. It also recommends reducing travel to a minimum, accelerating the vaccination campaign and ensuring enough free coronavirus tests are available.
It said how the pandemic evolved would depend on how people acted over the holidays, as well as how strongly the flu virus - which has epidemic potential - circulated this season.
The European Commission emphasised the importance of boosters to combat Omicron, and said Covid vaccine certificates in the bloc would be valid for only nine months without a third shot. It said maintaining the same validity period was “necessary for safe free movement and EU level coordination”.
The head of the World Health Organization said in Geneva on Monday night that holiday festivities would lead to “increased cases, overwhelmed health systems and more deaths” in many places.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus urged people to postpone gatherings. “An event cancelled is better than a life cancelled,” he said.
“There is now consistent evidence that Omicron is spreading significantly faster than the Delta variant, and it is more likely people vaccinated or recovered from Covid-19 could be infected or re-infected.”
Sweden said it would urge all employees to work from home if possible, impose tighter rules for social distancing and require seated-only service at bars, restaurants and larger public events.
“We must now take joint responsibility and we need to adapt to the new reality,” the country’s prime minister, Magdalena Andersson, said. “I understand that many are tired of this. So am I, but we now have a new virus variant, which means we are in a new situation.”
Concerns were also growing in Spain, where the country’s sixth coronavirus wave has sent infection rates soaring at it prepares to enter the Christmas season. The number of cases per 100,000 people hit 609 on Monday, up from 290 a fortnight ago.
The surge is already putting some hospitals and medical centres under strain. The proportion of ICU beds occupied by Covid patients stands at 15.5% nationally, but it rises to 25% in the Basque Country and almost 30% in Catalonia.
Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has urged people to remain calm but called an emergency meeting of the country’s regional leaders on Wednesday afternoon to discuss the response.
The Catalan regional government said on Monday that it was seeking legal permission to introduce a curfew between 1am and 6am that would begin on Friday and last for two weeks. It also plans to close nightclubs and limit gatherings to 10 people.
The regional health chief, Josep Argimon, said the measures were needed because of the arrival of Omicron. “Infections have grown 100% over the past week,” he said.
In Madrid, where the regional president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, has fiercely resisted restrictions, arguing they are too damaging economically, school authorities have called on her administration to urgently consider shutting schools two days before the end of term to help curb the spread of the variant.
Doctors in the capital and its region, where Omicron now accounts for 60% of new infections, have said immediate action must be taken to stave off the collapse of the health system. They have called for restrictions on the number of people allowed in bars and restaurants, caps on social gatherings and earlier vaccination of school-age children.
And Portugal on Tuesday ordered nightclubs and bars to close and told people to work from home for at least two weeks starting on Saturday.
“This still isn’t the normal Christmas we are used to,” prime minister Antonio Costa told a news conference. “If we do not adopt these measures now, the consequences on everyone’s lives will be much worse after Christmas and the new year.”
