France has announced a detailed map for a “progressive and controlled” exit from its strict lockdown from 11 May, even as official figures in Germany showed the Covid-19 infection rate starting to rise again after restrictions there were eased.
The French prime minister, Édouard Philippe, told parliament the decision to confine the population to their homes six weeks ago had saved 62,000 lives but it was now time to start lifting the lockdown to avoid economic collapse.
“We are going to have to learn to live with Covid-19,” Philippe said, “and to protect ourselves from it … It is a fine line that must be followed. A little too much carelessness, and the epidemic restarts. A little too much caution, and the entire country sinks.”
France has so far suffered more than 23,000 deaths from the coronavirus, one of the world’s highest death tolls.
Philippe warned that since some parts of the country had been hit far harder than others, lockdown measures would be lifted by area, with départements classified as red, orange or green depending on their infection level.
And if infection rates did not continue to fall as expected over the coming fortnight, the prime minister said, “we will not unwind the lockdown on May 11 – or we will do it more strictly”
Governments across Europe are wrestling with the conundrum of how best to lift confinement measures that are exacting a disastrous toll on their economies while avoiding a dangerous second wave of contagion, with Spain also set to announce its exit plan on Tuesday.
Philippe said French children could begin returning to pre-school and primary school classes from 11 May on a voluntary basis. From 18 May, junior high schools may reopen in areas where infections are low, with a decision to be made at the end of May on whether senior schools can re-open in June.
Online learning would remain available for those children whose parents would rather they stayed home while classes would be restricted to a maximum of 15 pupils with older students wearing face masks.
Philippe said all employees would be encouraged to continue working from home if possible and, if not, companies would be expected to introduce shift working to ensure physical distancing. Masks would be obligatory where physical distancing was not possible, he said.
Most shops – but not cafes, bars or restaurants – will be allowed to re-open from 11 May, except those in shopping centres, and public transport is set to resume with 70% of the Paris network expected be running.
Masks will be compulsory on public transport with passengers leaving every other seat empty. Travel between France’s regions, and outside a 100km radius from home, is permitted only for professional or urgent family reasons.
The French will be able to start socialising again as long as gatherings were kept to a maximum of 10 people, Philippe said, and people will be able to move freely outside without certificates justifying their activities. Individual sports will be permitted, but beaches and some parks will remain closed to the public at least until 1 June.
Public amenities such as libraries and small museums will be able to reopen from 11 May but large museums will not. Religious authorities have been asked not to organise services before 2 June.
Philippe said the government would reassess at the end of May whether conditions were right to ease restrictions further, to decide whether and when cafes, bars and restaurants could be reopened, and if summer holidays could go ahead.
Philippe also said enough non-medical face masks would be available for the whole French population from May 11, with companies expected to provide their employees with protection and 5m made available weekly for the most at-risk people.
The French government aims for at least 700,000 tests a week by 11 May with authorities aiming to trace and test all those who have come into close contact with a confirmed case, where symptomatic or not.
Spain, which has also suffered more than 23,000 coronavirus deaths, was due to announce its “gradual and asymmetrical” roadmap out of lockdown, although the prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, had first to present it to his cabinet and obtain their approval.
Salvador Illa, the health minister, has suggested that the easing of restrictions should be staggered, with different groups of people, such as families with children and the elderly, allowed out at different times of day.
The country’s population of nearly 47 million have spent more than six weeks in strict lockdown, with only adults authorised to leave home to buy food and medicines or walk the dog. In a first cautious step out of confinement on Sunday, children were allowed out for the first time.
In Germany, where the chancellor, Angela Merkel, and state premiers agreed that smaller shops, car and bike dealers and bookstores could reopen from last week and some pupils return to school from Monday, the first signs appeared that transmission of the virus had picked up again.
The reproduction or infection rate, under close watch by health authorities, rose to around 1.0 from 0.7, meaning each infected person passes the virus on to one other, figures from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for disease control showed. Ministers and virologists have stressed the number must be kept below 1.0.
“We don’t want the number of Covid-19 cases to rise again,” the institute’s president, Lothar Wieler, said on Tuesday. “Let us continue to stay at home as much as possible, keep observing the restrictions and keep a distance of 1.5 metres from one another.
The number should stay below one, that is the big goal.”
Germany has managed to limit its outbreak to 150,000 and just over 6,000 deaths and Merkel’s coalition government is coming under intense pressure to lift its lockdown faster, with elder statesmen such as Wolfgang Schäuble saying the social and economic costs of lockdown must be weighed against the need to save lives.
Merkel warned last week that some of the country’s 16 states were moving too swiftly. The country was on “very thin ice” and risked squandering its early achievements in containing the pandemic, she said. But the country’s most popular newspaper, Bild, on Monday accused her of being “stubborn, pig-headed and bossy”.
