Spain’s capital Madrid turned on its Christmas lights on Thursday, spending more than last year to illuminate 30 additional streets and squares despite a sharp economic downturn driven by the coronavirus pandemic.
Banners of LED lights in the red and yellow of the Spanish flag appeared in parts of the city, including stretches of over a kilometre alongside the central boulevard that runs past the world-famous Prado museum.
The lights are usually an important tourist attraction, but this year there are far fewer people on the streets due to the pandemic.
The cost of lighting the over 200 decorated streets is budgeted at €3.17m ($3.8m), slightly higher than the €3.08m a year ago. Plans to spend even more on the lights were scuppered by the Covid-19 crisis, the council said in a statement.
Spain forecasts economic output will fall 11.2% this year, after 2% growth last year, due to the effects of the pandemic.
The World Health Organization’s top emergency expert said the introduction of a Covid-19 vaccine should allow the world to gain progressive control over the disease next year.
Mike Ryan told RTE television in his native Ireland:
Life as we used to know it, I think that’s very, very possible but we will have to continue with the hygiene, physical distancing. Vaccines do not equal zero Covid.
Adding vaccines to our current measures will allow us to really crush the curve, avoid lockdowns and gain progressive control over the disease.
We need to be absolutely aware that we need to reduce the chance that we could infect someone else in just organising households carefully around the Christmas festivities.
The usual thing in Ireland of 15 people in the kitchen peeling potatoes and basting turkeys, that’s not what we should be doing.
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Below are some of the updates of the last few hours:
France reported 13,563 new coronavirus infections on Thursday, compared with 16,282 on Wednesday and 21,150 a week ago, suggesting the spread of the virus continued to slow in the fourth week of a national lockdown.
British stocks fell on Thursday amid heightened concerns over economic growth after the health minister, Matt Hancock, said more than a third of the population would remain under tough Covid-19 restrictions at the end of a national lockdown.
Greece has broken the toll of 2,000 deaths as a result of Covid-19. The public health organisation, EODY, reported the country had crossed the grim threshold following a further 99 fatalities over the last 24 hours.
Italy reported 822 Covid 19-related deaths on Thursday, up from 722 the day before, and 29,003 new infections, up from 25,853 on Wednesday, the health ministry said. There were 232,711 swabs carried out in the past day, compared with a previous 230,007.
Croatia will close cafes and restaurants and ban weddings until Christmas as the number of coronavirus cases hit a record high for the second day in a row, the government said. The country of 4 million reported 4,009 new cases and 51 deaths on Thursday, with 21,725 active cases.
The second wave of Covid-19 infections that has hit Sweden could peak in mid-December, health officials said on Thursday, saying developments will depend on how well the public follows social distancing advice.
Mass vaccination against Covid-19 is unlikely to start in Africa until midway through next year and keeping vaccines cold could be a big challenge, the continent’s disease control group said on Thursday.
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France reported 13,563 new coronavirus infections on Thursday, compared with 16,282 on Wednesday and 21,150 a week ago, suggesting the spread of the virus continued to slow in the fourth week of a national lockdown.
The number of people hospitalised with Covid-19 continued falling by a further 662 to 29,310, while the number of people in intensive care fell by 130 to 4,018, continuing a trend dating back two weeks, health ministry data showed.
Millions of Americans took to the skies and the highways ahead of Thanksgiving at the risk of pouring gasoline on the coronavirus fire, disregarding increasingly dire warnings that they stay home and limit their holiday gatherings to members of their own household.
Those who flew witnessed a distinctly 2020 landscape at the nation’s airports: plexiglass barriers in front of ID stations, rapid virus testing sites inside terminals, masks in check-in areas and onboard planes, and paperwork asking passengers to quarantine on arrival at their destination.
While the number of Americans travelling by air over the past several days was down dramatically from the same time last year, many pressed ahead with their holiday plans amid skyrocketing deaths, hospitalisations and confirmed infections across the US.
British stocks fell on Thursday amid heightened concerns over economic growth after the health minister, Matt Hancock, said more than a third of the population would remain under tough Covid-19 restrictions at the end of a national lockdown.
The blue-chip FTSE 100 index slipped 0.4%, with financial and material stocks weighing the most, while the domestically focused mid-cap FTSE 250 lost 0.9%, ending at a nine-day low.
Hancock’s announcement followed the chancellor Rishi Sunak’s grim forecast on Wednesday that Britain was set for its worst annual economic contraction in more than 300 years due to the pandemic.
As EU countries debate a bloc-wide ban on ski holidays to curb coronavirus infections, downhill enthusiasts may be tempted to head to non-member Switzerland, where the winter season is well under way.
Germany and Italy were on Thursday pushing for Europe to ban ski holidays as the number of worldwide infections reached a new peak of more than 60m.
Paris has said the French are welcome to visit the country’s resorts, as long as they don’t ski, while Austria has warned that an EU-wide ban would be “disastrous” for the country’s tourism-reliant economy.
In Switzerland meanwhile, which has been hard-hit by the second wave of Covid-19 infections, the authorities, ski and tourism sectors have stood united behind the decision to keep the winter season going, after the spring season was cut short by the first wave.
“In Switzerland, we can go skiing, with protection plans in place,” the Swiss health minister, Alain Berset, told reporters Thursday.
He added, though, that the government would re-examine the situation before the Christmas holidays because even though decisions on what parts of the economy should shut down are generally left to the Swiss cantons or states, the federal government can step in if it deems the situation unsafe.
Greece has broken the toll of 2,000 deaths as a result of Covid-19. The public health organisation, EODY, reported the country had crossed the grim threshold following a further 99 fatalities over the last 24 hours.
An additional 2,018 cases of coronavirus were also confirmed, the majority (562) in Thessaloniki in northern Greece, and 408 in the Greater Athens region of Attica. A record 600 people are now in intensive care wards nationwide.
