Omicron and delta spell return of unpopular restrictions

Greeks over 60 who refuse coronavirus vaccinations might face monthly fines of more than a fourth of their basic pensions, according to a tough-on-crime legislation that lawmakers claim will cost votes but save lives.

Despite what appears to be widespread approval of the rules, weekly protests in the Netherlands against the country’s 5 p.m. lockdown and other new limitations have devolved into violence.

After a public outcry, Israel’s government banned the deployment of a controversial phone monitoring device to track probable instances of the new coronavirus type on Thursday.

With the delta variation of COVID-19 causing an increase in cases in Europe and mounting concerns about the omicron variant, governments all around the world are considering new methods for people who are sick of hearing about restrictions and immunizations.

The threat of backlash, exacerbated societal differences, and, for many politicians, the dread of being voted out of office make it a difficult calculation.

“I understand the frustration that we all feel with this omicron variant, the sense of exhaustion that we could be going through it all over again,” British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Tuesday, two days after the government announced that masks would once again be required in stores and on public transportation, as well as a COVID-19 test and quarantine for all visitors from abroad. “We’re attempting to have a proportionate and balanced approach.”

New limits, or variants on existing ones, are springing up all across the world, particularly in Europe, where governments are scrambling to explain what appears to be a broken promise: that mass vaccinations will abolish widely despised restrictions.

“People require a sense of normalcy. They need families, they need to meet people, obviously safely and socially, but I truly believe that this Christmas, people have had enough,” said Belinda Storey, who owns a stall at a Nottingham Christmas market.

Mounted police patrol the streets in the Netherlands, where the lockdown went into place last week, to break up protests. However, the majority of individuals looked to be content to dash through their errands and return home.

“All we can do now is listen to the rules, follow them, and pray things don’t get any worse.” It’s not a problem for me. I work as a nurse. Wilma van Kampen commented, “I know how sick people get.”

Huburt Bruls, the mayor of the Dutch city of Nijmegen, who last weekend banned a protest, said he sympathized with the discontent but was willing to follow national standards.

“Vaccination’s results were met with a great deal of dissatisfaction. Everyone gave it their all, and we had one of the highest immunization rates in the country, but it wasn’t enough. Infections are at an all-time high. “I was disappointed myself, but we must look forward,” he remarked.

If residents above the age of 60 in Greece do not get vaccinated, they will be fined 100 euros ($113) per month. In January, the fines will be added to tax bills.

Despite many efforts to persuade them to receive their immunizations, about 17% of Greeks over 60 remain unvaccinated, and nine out of ten Greeks now dying of COVID-19 are over 60.

“I don’t care if the policy costs me a few more votes in the elections,” Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said after MPs approved the bill on Wednesday. “I am sure that we are doing the right thing, and that this strategy will save lives,” she says.

Slovakia’s government is proposing to reward seniors aged 60 and up with a 500-euro ($568) incentive if they are vaccinated, rather than using a stick.

The Israeli government briefly started utilizing a phone-monitoring technique this week to undertake contact tracing of those who have been confirmed to have the omicron variant, only to stop using it on Thursday.

On Twitter, Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz said, “From the beginning, I noted that use of this tool would be limited and brief — for a few days, in order to get urgent information to halt infection with the new, unknown variant.”

Previous restrictions in South Africa, which alerted the World Health Organization to the omicron variant, included curfews and a prohibition on the sale of alcohol. President Cyril Ramaphosa is merely urging more people to obtain immunizations “to help restore the social freedoms we all seek.”

Unvaccinated people are now prohibited from entering non-essential stores, restaurants, and other large public places in Germany, which was announced on Thursday. Only a negative test allows them to return to work. In the next weeks, the legislature is anticipated to take up a general vaccine mandate.

The measures, according to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, are necessary because hospitals are at risk of becoming overburdened:

“Our country’s position is critical.”

In the United States, neither major party wants to go back to lockdowns or tight contact tracing. Even simple measures like wearing a mask have become a political hot potato. Republicans are also suing to stop the Biden administration’s new requirement for large employers to get vaccinated or tested.

President Joe Biden, whose political fate may well hinge on controlling the pandemic, has said the U.S. will fight COVID-19 and the new variant “not with shutdowns or lockdowns but with more widespread vaccinations, boosters, testing, and more.”

“If people are vaccinated and wear their masks, there’s no need for the lockdowns,” he added.

Mark Christensen, a grain buyer at an ethanol plant in Nebraska, is unconcerned about the new variant’s emergence. He opposes any vaccine requirement and does not see why it is necessary.

In any case, most firms in his part of the state, he claims, are too tiny to be subject to the regulations.

“It’s one thing if they were just advising me to take it,” Christensen added. “However, I believe in the freedom of choice rather than arbitrary decisions.”

Since the discovery of omicron, Chile has taken a tougher stance: those over the age of 18 must get a booster shot every six months to keep their pass, which allows them to enter restaurants, hotels, and public meetings.

Masks are a simple and painless approach to keep transmission down, according to Dr. Madhukar Pai of McGill University’s School of Population and Public Health, but cheap, at-home testing need to be much more widely used in both affluent and poor countries.

Both ways, he added, provide people a sense of control over their own behavior that a lockdown takes away, making it easier to accept the necessity to cancel a party or stay indoors.

Pai believes that needing boosters everywhere, as is the situation in Israel, Chile, and several European countries, including France, will merely extend the pandemic by making it more difficult to provide first doses to poor countries. This increases the chances of even more varieties.

He believes that lockdowns should be the very last resort.

“Lockdowns only happen when a system fails,” he explained. “When the hospital system is on the verge of collapsing, we do it.” It’s a final resort that suggests you haven’t done everything right.”