Spain, Austria Ease Lockdown Against WHO Warnings

• Spain, Austria Ease Lockdown Against WHO Warnings

Spain and Austria on Tuesday partially allowed movements despite the World Health Organisation warning that the coronavirus has not peaked.

With almost 2 million people infected globally and more than 119,200 deaths in the world’s largest health crisis, WHO said while the outbreak of new cases slow in certain parts of Europea, the numbers of new cases continue to rise in Britain and Turkey.

“The overall world outbreak, 90 percent of cases are coming from Europe and the United States of America. So we are certainly not seeing the peak yet,” WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris said in Geneva during a briefing.

Some Spanish businesses, including construction and manufacturing, were allowed to restart. Shops, bars and public spaces are to stay closed until at least April 26.

Spain was flattening the curve on the graph, representing the rate of growth of the outbreak, Health Minister Salvador Illa said on Tuesday. The overnight death toll from the coronavirus rose to 567 on Tuesday from 517 a day earlier, but the country reported its lowest increase in new cases since March 18. Total deaths climbed to 18,056.

Some workers expressed concern that the relaxation of restrictions could trigger a new surge. But for Roberto Aguayo, a 50-year-old Barcelona construction worker, the restart came just in time.

“We really needed it, just when we were going to run out of food we returned to work,” he told Reuters.