New Covid Measures Spark Massive Protests in Brussels

New Covid restrictions sparked massive demonstrations in Brussels on Sunday.

Belgium recently extended the use of face masks and mandatory remote work in an attempt to contain a new surge of cases.

Europe is once again resorting to lockdowns and imposing restrictions on the unvaccinated to stem the latest wave of Covid-19 infections that threatens to overwhelm the continent’s health systems.

The situation, a dramatic reversal from just a few months ago, is turning into a race against time as hospital wards fill up and infections explode in countries like Germany and neighboring Austria. But governments are responding at different speeds and different rates of intensity, with some essentially abandoning any hope that crackdowns can be limited to the unvaccinated, while others rush to administer booster shots.

The staggering rise in hospitalizations, the record levels of infections of recent days and the inability of health officials to get millions of people to take their Covid shots is leaving authorities resorting to methods that many only recently insisted would never be used again.

The Netherlands entered a partial lockdown last weekend, with bars and restaurants required to shut down effective from 8 p.m. local time. Non-essential shops must close at 6 p.m. The majority of coronavirus patients that end up in Dutch hospital have not been vaccinated. The combination of high infections, the limited amount of intensive-care beds and postponed medical treatments for other kinds of patients forced the government into what Prime Minister Mark Rutte called “drastic measures.”