wired.co.uk: With fear and trepidation, Europe leaves coronavirus lockdown

Coronavirus disease outbreak dashboard showing deathtoll

European countries easing lockdown restrictions are taking wildly different approaches. Can they all be right?

That how small business survives today

For the past month, hairdresser Simone Jungwirth has been forced to swap running a busy salon in Vienna with a daily routine that orbits around cooking, gardening and drawing, as a full-time mum.

When the coronavirus started spreading in Europe, the Austrian government imposed one of the continent’s first strict lockdowns. That decision has been credited with keeping the death toll in the low hundreds compared to neighbouring Italy, where more than 20,000 people have so far lost their lives.

Like lockdowns everywhere, school and business closures upended lives across the country. First, Jungwirth had to close her salon and cancel her clients’ appointments. Next, her two-year-old daughter was sent home from kindergarten without a fixed date to return. With her parents in self-isolation and her boyfriend swamped by his job in social work, she spent 24 hours a day with her daughter – there was no one around to help with childcare. When she wanted time for herself, she would wake up at 5am and walk to her empty shop to water the plants or do yoga, returning home before her boyfriend left for work.

Salon Jungwirth is planning to re-open on May 2 and already the diary is filling up. Despite the fall in income, Jungwirth was lucky: her landlord paused the rent and her clients are clamouring to come back. “I got tons of calls and messages for appointments,” she says. “Professionally, I was really happy to hear I can go back to work soon.” But personally, her feelings were more complicated. “It was a mix of happiness, uncertainty and a lot of thoughts about how it will be back at work with all the [hygiene] restrictions like masks, no hugs.”

Jungwirth is not alone in her uncertainty. European leaders are warily watching countries such as Singapore and China, where new infections in the past few weeks have sparked fears of a second-wave. Their own announcements have come with strong caveats. “If we open Denmark too quickly again we risk that infections rise too sharply and then we have to close down again,” Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen said at a press conference last week.

European Commission chief Ursula Von Der Leyen also warned this weekend that life cannot return to full normality before a vaccine has been developed – considered highly unlikely before 2021.

Comments

Business life in Europe wakes up

Business life in Europe wakes up The organisers of Sleep & Eat have announced the first details of this November’s show in Olympia London, designed to support hospitality businesses across the spectrum and lift the trammelled spirits of the hospitality community. New for this year, there will be an array of meeting and networking platforms designed to generate conversations and connections between all members of the hospitality community, which will include series of one-to-one meetings organised in advance through the show’s new portal. Initiatives such as these will be combined with a unique collection of experiential Sets, a Conference bringing industry leaders together, this year to debate the shape of hospitality after COVID-19, and an international Exhibition. The organisers have also revealed that, for the first time, the event will be delivered in collaboration with major international Hotel Brand Partners, Accor, IHG and Wyndham Hotels & Resorts. ...

Italy: Wine sales sour from virus

Italy: Wine sales sour from virus With Italy's restaurants and bars closed for another month and global trade snuffed out by the coronavirus, the world's top wine producing country is experiencing an existential crisis. Italy's 47.5 million hectoliters edged out France's 42.1 million for last year's global wine production title, although France's 9.8 billion euros ($10.7 billion) in exports beat out Italy's 6.4 billion euros. Making nearly a fifth of all the world's wine and selling more than half of it at home, Italy's two-month lockdown has hit the Mediterranean country's winegrowers especially hard. High end hurting Some of Italy's most prestigious wines are suffering from the worldwide lockdown. For decades, Barolo has focused on "maximum quality," earning a place on the wine lists of some of the world's best restaurants, said Paolo Boffa, president of the Terre del Barolo cooperative. See more: https...

Italy: Firms shake lockdown using shortcut in coronavirus law

Italy: Firms shake lockdown using shortcut in coronavirus law The government last week extended non-essential business closures to May 3. But more than 100,000 mainly small- and medium-sized companies have applied to keep going or partially reopen. In principle, a key hurdle for companies to do business should be that they can prove they are part of a supply chain to businesses that are deemed “essential” in a government decree, such as food, energy or pharmaceutical companies. But the government, facing a backlog of applications, has clarified Italy’s lockdown laws to say no companies need to wait for government approval to go ahead. More than 105,000 firms have applied to be considered part of essential supply chains, the interior minister said on Wednesday, in a guideline on its website to clarify the lockdown rules. Of those, just over 2,000 have been turned down and told to suspend their business. More than 38,000 are being investigated and the rest are waiting to be...

Business advice

Search This Blog