France makes impossible promise

The resurgence of the coronavirus in Europe has reignited fears that governments will have to lock down their economies again in the autumn. Some political leaders, including President Emmanuel Macron of France, have rushed to dismiss this possibility, saying the collateral damage from a new bout of confinement would just be too high.
Europe’s second wave of Covid-19 is certainly different — and, so far, less alarming — than the first. There is plenty that politicians and the general public can do to avoid a return to the most draconian measures of March, April and May. Localised lockdowns have been effective in particular towns or regions that suffer sudden infection spikes.
However, it’s impossible to rule out a new round of generalised isolation. A full shutdown isn’t an optional policy, but a last resort against the epidemic should it spiral out of control again. As we saw in the springtime, tens of thousands of deaths and overwhelmed hospitals are not politically acceptable in most countries. We’ve yet to see what will happen in the colder months, when more people are forced inside and governments try to keep workplaces and schools open.
After a quiet start to the summer, Europe is experiencing a sharp rise in cases. Spain and France have registered more than 3,000 and 4,000 new infections per day respectively, and Germany and Italy are seeing more cases too. The pressure on hospitals remains manageable, but it’s slowly increasing. Public-health officials, who are generally working hard to trace the contacts of those who test positive, face an increasingly difficult job.
There’s no doubt this phase of the virus is unlike the first. Many more people are being tested and the
percentage of those who test positive is significantly lower. In Italy it is barely above 1%; in March it was regularly in excess of 20%. There’s a much higher proportion of people with few or no symptoms. This means that the number of counted cases is much closer to the “real” figure than it was a few months ago. Back then, most of the testing was of people with severe symptoms, meaning the scale of contagion was inevitably much larger.
Moreover, governments have designed better tools to keep the situation in check. For a start, they can seek to circumscribe the outbreak actively via contact tracing. They can also rely on more help from the public. While there’s growing evidence of “distancing fatigue,” where people are letting their guard down by not wearing masks and ignoring guidelines on socialising, the severity of the first outbreak is still fresh in everyone’s minds. Finally, doctors have got better at treating Covid-19 patients, even though there’s no definitive cure yet.

—Bloomberg