Bars and restaurants reopen in France and Austria

Special Desk

As lockdown eases in France and Austria bars, shops and cultural spaces across France have reopened.
Groups of up to six people are allowed to eat together at outdoor restaurant terraces. France’s nationwide curfew is also being pushed back from 19 pm to 21 pm. Austria has also allowed restaurants, cinemas and theatres to open for the first time in the past six months.

Customers with a Green Pass showing a negative test, vaccinations or recovery from an infection will now be able to take advantage of Austria’s new rules.

Austria’s government has announced that with immediate effect, travellers from certain countries with low rates of infections will no longer have to quarantine, although they will still need to provide proof of a negative test, vaccinations or a recent infection. The UK and Sweden are not included in this particular list.

Austria entered its second nationwide lockdown in November after reporting record numbers of daily infections. Fewer than 600 new cases were reported on Tuesday, down from a peak of 9,586 on 12 November.

Following months of closures, easing of restrictions means that along with restaurants, cafes and non-essential shops, cinemas, theatres, museums and sports venues are also welcoming customers. Some medical experts in the country had raised concerns about the number of new daily Covid-19 infections, which now average about 13,000.

But that figure is far lower than the peaks of more than 40,000 daily cases recorded as recently as last month.
France’s vaccination campaign has also been accelerating in recent weeks, with more than 20 million people (about one third of the population) having received at least one dose, and almost nine million having received both.