WORLD
The Virus That ‘Stole’ Christmas
In Germany, it’s allowed to celebrate Christmas with four people outside of one’s household. In the Netherlands, that number is three. Under Belgium’s mind-numbingly complicated rules, it’s one – or two, if you live alone – or four if you stay outside. And in much of England, it’s zero.
In late November, Europeans looked at the US’ Thanksgiving surge in travel and family gatherings in shock, in horror and in disbelief, fearing post-holiday Covid-19 spikes, the Washington Post reported. Now they are facing their own as they try to balance public health considerations with the desire to give their citizens a little respite for the holidays after a particularly grim year.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson exemplifies that dilemma: For a few days, at least, he thought England might be able to get away with allowing three families to celebrate Christmas together after months of separation. Health officials were not pleased, explained CNN.
Just a few days later, he changed course.
Alarmed by a fast-spreading variant of the coronavirus, Johnson imposed a wholesale lockdown on London and most of England’s southeast, banning Christmas-season gatherings beyond individual households starting Dec. 20 and lasting at least 10 days.
“This year, Christmas will be different,” said Johnson. “Many of us are longing to spend time with family and friends, irrespective of our faith or background, and yet we cannot throw caution to the wind. The virus doesn’t know that it’s Christmas.”
Some European officials can’t bring themselves to stop celebrations completely and are relaxing restrictions to allow for the holidays. In Ireland, officials lifted a travel ban for the Christmas period but kept some shops and pubs shut. France, which imposed a hard lockdown in early November and whose president, Emmanuel Macron, tested positive for the virus earlier this month, loosened restrictions two weeks ago to allow shopping, travel and Yuletide celebrations. Even so, curfews are still in place – except on Christmas, the Local noted.
And Belgium, which has more coronavirus-related deaths per capita and a higher rate of infection than all but three other countries in the world, went into hard lockdown but lifted some restrictions to allow Christmas shopping, the Washington Post reported. Authorities are allowing social gatherings including Christmas celebrations but limited to four people. They must take place outdoors – with a caveat. “You are not allowed to go through an interior space first because then there is a risk that many people will be together in a small space,” Interior Minister Annelies Verlinden told Het Laatste Nieuws.
And there is another catch: Only one guest who is chosen as a “close contact” is allowed inside the house to use the bathroom.
Still, Italy is more typical of European measures: Under a hard lockdown for most of the holidays, non-essential stores are shut and travel is restricted. Ditto for Poland which has placed a dusk-to-dawn curfew for New Year’s eve. In the Netherlands, non-essential businesses are closed for five weeks from mid-December after cases rose by more than 40 percent in a week, reported the Guardian. The Czech Republic has closed restaurants and hotels, limited gatherings to six people and imposed a nationwide curfew from 11 p.m. to 5 a.m. In Croatia, all non-essential travel is banned.
Spanish Health Minister Salvador Illa, who imposed similar restrictions, was blunt, telling fellow Spaniards that this Christmas would simply not be normal: “It will be different, and with distance.”
Germany, touted as a success for keeping its death rates low in the spring, imposed a hard lockdown on Dec. 16 as the daily infection rate hit 30,000 – up from a high of 7,000 in March – because November’s ‘lockdown lite’ failed, officials admitted, as the Washington Times wrote. The country has shut down non-essential stores, restaurants and bars, hairdressers and schools – again – and imposed curfews. Officials also forced its famed Christmas markets to close and imposed a ban on singing in churches.
Meanwhile, fireworks are banned – there will be no rockets and sparklers for New Year’s Eve, an annual crazy free-for-all that turns the streets of Berlin into mini war-zones.
Close to tears in an address to parliament, Chancellor Angela Merkel pleaded with Germans to be more careful. “As hard as it is — and I know how much love has gone into setting up these mulled wine stands – this is not the same as agreeing only to do takeout,” she said. “I am really sorry, from the bottom of my heart … but the price of 590 deaths a day is not acceptable.”
In Sweden, King Carl XVI Gustaf, whose son and daughter-in-law tested positive last month, used an annual royal Christmas speech to highlight the growing impact of the virus in a rare intervention from a monarch whose duties are largely ceremonial, Reuters reported.
“I believe we have failed,” the king said about the country’s handling of the pandemic. Sweden, unlike other European countries, shunned lockdowns and masks and left schools, restaurants and businesses largely open. As a result, it has had a much higher per capita death rate than its Nordic neighbors, Denmark and Norway. Officials are now restricting social gatherings and considering other measures.
Meanwhile, Interior Minister Mikael Damberg said on Dec. 21 the country would shut its border with Denmark for one month because officials feared that harsh lockdown measures in Denmark would spur Danes to flock to Sweden to do their Christmas shopping, the BBC reported.
Out of desperation, some in Europe have suggested novel solutions to compensate for the lackluster holidays.
Andreas Westerfellhaus, Germany’s commissioner for nursing care, suggested that families should consider celebrating in “shifts” to avoid spreading the virus to the vulnerable. “Different households could celebrate together on different days,” he told German daily, Bild. Meanwhile, Frédérique Jacobs, head of the infectious-diseases department at the Erasme Hospital in Brussels, suggested that Christmas celebrations could be postponed to July or August. “To slow down the curve, we have to imagine different holidays,” Jacobs told Belgian broadcaster RTBF.
Some, meanwhile, are taking the holiday restrictions in stride. Christmas is a time that is about more than parties or gifts or even gatherings, they say.
In Nuremberg, Benigna Munsi, 18, is serving her second year as the magical Germanic figure of the Christkind, who, in the local tradition, is a young woman with long blond curls, a towering crown and wing-like golden sleeves, as the New York Times detailed. She is the city’s holiday ambassador, a carrier of Christmas magic, of compassion and of gifts, and is the patron of its celebrated Christmas market, which was canceled this year.
“Don’t let things get you down and don’t give up,” Munsi said, describing how she despaired at forgoing visits to the sick at hospitals, the elderly at nursing homes, the homeless at shelters and the children at the Christmas market as the Christkind usually does. Instead, she appears online and takes phone calls twice a week from those who wish to speak to the Christkind.
“Even in a world weary of coronavirus and seemingly endless lockdowns,” she said, “we can always find something beautiful.”
