France became on 25 October the European country worst hit by the coronavirus second spike, which have hit the continent and the UK since the autumn with unexpected intensity. The local and regional lockdowns proliferating in most countries now threaten the region with another devastating economic blow.

• French authorities said on 25 October that more than 52,000 cases had been registered in the previous 24 hours, doubling the daily average from the previous week. France now has the largest number of persons infected in Europe, and the fifth-largest in the world behind the US, India, Brazil, and Russia.
• Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte announced on Sunday that all bars and restaurants in the country would close from 6pm, starting on 26 October. Theatres, cinemas, gyms, and swimming pools will be shut as well. The measures will remain in place for one month. “We cannot lower our guard,” Conte warned.
• A new state of emergency was announced on Sunday in Spain by Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, which would allow the central government to impose nighttime curfews or even the banning of inter-regional travel. “We are living in an extreme situation,” Sánchez said.
• AstraZeneca, the UK pharmaceuticals company, said that the Covid-19 vaccine it is currently developing with the University of Oxford produces a similar immune response in younger and elder adults, and that adverse responses were lower among the elderly. A spokesman for the group deemed the result “encouraging.”

The outlook: Lockdown fatigue is triggering protests throughout Europe against the severity of the new measures, as the second spike of the virus is about to end the swift summer economic rebound. But the task of governments will become even harder if they cannot show results for the new restrictions — in the form of a major pandemic slowdown.