Emergency tents, restrictions back as virus spikes in Madrid

September 18, 2020

MADRID (AP) — Many residents in Madrid will need a reason to leave their neighborhoods and will face limitations on group gatherings even stricter than the ones in place as authorities moved Friday to try to rein in Europe's fastest-spreading second coronavirus wave.

The long-awaited restrictions affect around 860,000 people, or 13% of the region's 6.6 million residents, in areas where one of every four new virus infections are being detected, regional chief Isabel Díaz Ayuso announced at a news conference.

The areas are also the poorest, more densely populated, and have a prevalent virus incidence above 1,000 cases per 100,000 for the past 14 days. The same rate for the whole of Europe, including the U.K., stood at 76, according to the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control, or ECDC.

The Madrid region’s deputy health chief had said earlier this week that the stricter restrictions would be “selective lockdowns,” but Díaz Ayuso said Friday that she wanted to avoid any mandatory stay-at-home orders.

“We need to avoid economic disaster,” she said. “It's not the time to confine all citizens, but rather to apply measures in areas we have perfectly identified.” Under the new rules, parks will be closed, shops and restaurants will need to work at 50% of their capacity and residents will need to justify that they are on their way to work, study or see a doctor in order to leave the targeted areas. Nearly 1 million quick antigen tests will also be performed, authorities said.

The Spanish capital's rate of transmission is more than double the national average, which already leads European contagion charts. On Friday, it reported more than 5,100 new infections for the city and its surrounding area, 200 more than the day before. The region's hospitals were treating 2,907 people (17% of the total hospital capacity) including nearly 400 in intensive care units, or 41% of those beds.

As yet another sign of how, slowly but steadily, beds are being taken up by COVID-19 patients, a line of green empty tents labelled with red crosses stood empty on Friday at the gates of Madrid's Gómez Ulla military hospital.

Spain’s Defense Ministry said that the tents were installed “protectively” to triage patients and avoid overcrowded emergency wards. Over 640,000 people have tested positive for the new virus in Spain, more than in any other European country, and at least 30,400 have died since the beginning of the pandemic, according to the Health Ministry’s official data.

In the capital, despite curbs on nightlife, outdoor smoking and limiting all group interaction to a maximum of 10 people — and to six starting from Monday — COVID-19 cases have continued stubbornly on the rise. The incremental measures haven't prevented the outbreaks from spreading widely, something that experts blame on looser observance of self-protection and, especially, a failure in diligent tracing of contacts of positive cases.

Some experts warned that more action was needed. “They are overthinking it. Action is needed," said Daniel López Acuña, who was director of emergencies at the World Health Organization, adding that the measures were “tardy and insufficient."

Rafael Bengoa, another former WHO official, said that with widespread community transmission, "is possible that very soon a full lockdown will be needed.” “It seems like we are learning too slow — we haven’t acted energetically enough,” Bengoa told Cadena SER radio.

The center-right coalition government in Madrid has been in turmoil, part internal infighting and part external criticism, as it struggled this week on what to do next. Díaz Ayuso has also been one of the biggest critics of the response to the pandemic by the national government, a left-wing coalition led by Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.

Her government recovered control to handle the response in late June, once the central government lifted a state of emergency that had reined in a devastating first wave of the virus. But since then, Díaz Ayuso had been complaining that Sánchez's government wasn't helping enough.

After weeks exchanging blame for inaction, Sánchez and Díaz Ayuso have agreed to meet Monday with the only goal of “bending the curve,” both governments announced Friday. Part of the concern is Madrid’s capacity to spread infections to other parts of the country. Home to 3.3 million people in its urban area and as many more in its surrounding region, the city is also Spain’s economic powerhouse. It’s also centrally located at the heart of the Iberian Peninsula, bringing in workers from nearby provinces and visitors from elsewhere.

But so far it’s health centers that are shouldering the worst of the crisis. Famously underfunded for years, primary care doctors and nurses are now also performing thousands of virus tests per day, and have taken the burden of tracing contacts of those who come out as positive.

That’s causing increasingly longer delays in providing test results, leaving people like Raquel López, a 39-year-old sociologist on her 21st week of pregnancy, in self-imposed home isolation for five days as she waited to find out whether she had the virus.

Raquel, who took the test on Monday after finding out that a family she spent time with a week earlier had contracted the virus, was finally told on Friday that she’s negative. For days, nobody picked up the phone at her local health center, she said.

“But it could had been either way,” said López, who works from home. “My husband and I have been responsible and we haven’t gone out while waiting for the results, but what happens with people who can’t afford to miss work? Are they going to wait at home or go out there possibly infecting others?”

López lives in Vallecas, one of the working class neighborhoods where the new restrictions will be imposed from Monday. She’s angry at officials who promote the idea that people in impoverished areas are to blame for not using masks, keeping social distancing or completing quarantines.

“That’s not true. We are doing it the same way as the rest of Madrid,” she said. “The truth is that citizens are behaving much better than politicians.”

AP photographer Manu Fernández contributed to this report.

Virus clusters at French universities give Europe a lesson

September 18, 2020

PARIS (AP) — Can mandatory masks offer enough protection in lecture halls so packed that late arrivals have to sit on the floor? That's what worries many students at the centuries-old Sorbonne University in Paris as the coronavirus is on the rebound across France.

At least a dozen COVID-19 clusters have emerged since French campuses and classrooms opened this month. The clutches of cases are a warning sign for countries elsewhere in Europe, where most universities are readying to resume teaching and research in coming weeks.

“We go back to university in conditions that are a bit extreme, and we fear we might get COVID-19,” Elise Gilbert, 20, who is studying literature at the Sorbonne, said of the overcrowding students encountered.

France's experience so far stands in contrast to what's happening in Britain, where virus-driven changes on campuses mean university life will look a lot different this term. Germany and Italy are also adapting their delivery of higher education in response to the pandemic.

The French government was determined to get people back to classrooms to bridge education inequities that the pandemic has exacerbated. The government also urged workers to return to offices and job sites to resuscitate the economy and to "learn to live with the virus."

At universities, the main change this year is mandatory mask-wearing at all times. But keeping physical distances appears impossible in many places. Some students are raising their grievances on Twitter, using the hashtag #Balancetafac (“Squeal on your uni”) to share pictures of packed classrooms and corridors.

They describe situations where there's no soap to wash their hands and where rooms, sometimes with no windows to provide fresh air, are not being disinfected between lectures. “We are doing our best to respect social distancing, but sometimes we can’t,” Corentin Renoult, a 20-year-old Sorbonne journalism student, said.

Nevertheless, the Sorbonne is maintaining in-person classes for the time being. “It’s quite hard at the moment because we haven’t got any extra means," Franziska Heimburger, assistant director of the university’s English department, said. ".We don’t have any more teachers, we don’t have any more space, so we basically have to teach as best we can.”

Heimburger said instructors won't penalize students for pandemic-related absences. “I’ve had students who live with their grandparents and they are worried of taking (the virus) back home with them,” she said.

Many students also expressed anger when French authorities appeared to blame the country's recent virus outbreaks mostly on students attending parties. One factor in the overcrowding is more students are attending French universities. The number of students enrolled jumped by 270,000 to 2.8 million after the exam which allows high school students access to universities was canceled due to the pandemic. Students were instead granted access based on school grades, and many more qualified than usual.

The safety precautions differ broadly among schools. Some have strict public health measures in place, with small class size limits and a mix of in-person and online classes. But others have had to temporarily shut down after dozens of students tested positive in multiple sites, from engineering to medical and business schools. They moved teaching online, as when the country was locked down at the height of its epidemic which has killed some 31,000 people in France.

In the UK, most universities do not begin their fall terms until late September or early October, and are readying big changes. At the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, where the fall semester began Monday, many classes are being taught online — other than laboratory sessions or other practical instruction where hands-on learning is essential. Student societies are barred from meeting in person, and many students arriving from overseas will have to quarantine for two weeks in line with government protocols.

At University College London, only a quarter of the buildings will be occupied at one time. Teaching spaces will incorporate social distancing and everyone must wear face-masks. The university created an app for students to alert authorities if they have symptoms and plans to test up to 1,000 students and staff a day to keep the campus safe.

“I’ve got a public health expert team that are advising me when it’s appropriate to extend testing beyond those that are immediately symptomatic,'' Michael Arthur, the president and provost at UCL. “So I think we’re reasonably confident if we do have an outbreak — and I’m sure we will have, we’re just playing with statistics — that we can move in and contain it very rapidly.”

Student housing has been adapted to allow those who test positive to self-isolate. In Germany, most universities won't start lectures before next month, and they have introduced numerous rules to ensure distancing, increased hygiene and bans on students’ parties. They are also expanding online teaching.

Student associations in the Dutch university city of Delft sent a letter this week calling on students to “take responsibility” for reining in infections that are spreading quickly, particularly in student housing.

“The initiative is with students to prevent a local lockdown,” the associations said. “It’s not too late, but time is pressing.” Many Italian universities are reopening with distance learning this fall. Priority for physical classrooms was being given to first-year students, to aid their transition.

In the United States, dozens of universities have emerged as virus hot spots. Although students are being spaced apart in classrooms and dining halls, the virus has continued to spread in cramped dorm halls and through off-campus parties that have been blamed for thousands of cases.

The surge has prompted some universities to send students home and cancel in-person instruction for the rest of the term. U.S. officials are urging against that approach, saying it could spark outbreaks elsewhere. Instead, universities are being urged to keep students where they are and temporarily move classes online.

Danica Kirka in London, Jeff Schaeffer and Alex Turnbull in Paris, Frank Jordans in Berlin, Michael Corder in The Hague and Collin Binkley in Boston contributed.

EU fails to agree Belarus sanctions despite opposition plea

September 21, 2020

BRUSSELS (AP) — European Union foreign ministers failed on Monday to impose sanctions on Belarus officials suspected of election fraud or of playing a part in the security crackdown, despite appeals from President Alexander Lukashenko’s main opponent to take courageous action against his regime.

With pro-democracy rallies in Belarus now in their seventh week, the EU ministers were weighing whether to impose asset freezes and travel bans on around 40 people linked to irregularities in the Aug. 9 elections that gave Lukashenko a sixth term in office, and over the crackdown that followed.

Several countries want Lukashenko on the sanction list, but some would prefer to gradually ramp up pressure on him by adding names, including his, if he refuses to enter into dialogue with the opposition, rather than hit everyone at once.

Cyprus, notably, continued to block the sanctions move until similar measures are slapped on Turkey for its disputed energy exploration in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. EU leaders are now expected to try to break the deadlock when they meet in Brussels on Thursday.

“Although there is a clear will to adopt those sanctions, it has not been possible to do that today because the required unanimity was not reached,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell told reporters after chairing the ministers’ meeting. “Cyprus is missing to give us unanimity."

Borrell said that the EU’s ability to forge a common foreign policy among 27 countries is on the line over the sanctions. “If we are not able to do that, then I understand perfectly that our credibility is at stake,” he said.

Even before the meeting began, Cypriot Foreign Minister Nikos Christodoulides said that the EU’s “reaction to any kind of violation of our core basic values and principles cannot be a la carte. It needs to be consistent.”

However, Borrell said that the ministers were united in their rejection of the results of the Aug. 9 election that swept Lukashenko back into office after 26 years in power and want to see new polls held under the guidance of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

“We are stressing our solidarity with the people of Belarus, their democratic aspirations and their call for a new free and fair elections under the OSCE’s supervision,” he said. He underlined that the EU has no “hidden agenda” in Belarus and he urged other countries not to interfere.

At talks over breakfast before the meeting started, Lukashenko’s main opponent, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, appealed to the ministers for their support and for the EU to call for fresh elections in Belarus.

“We did a lot to manage with this situation by ourselves, with only the strength of the Belarusian people, but now I understand that we need exterior help,” Tsikhanouskaya said, speaking in English. She is living in exile in EU member Lithuania after fleeing Belarus in fear for her safety and that of her children.

She urged Europe not to provide financial support to the regime, saying “it will only go for violence, for killing Belarusian people.” Tsikhanouskaya said “sanctions are very important in our fight” to help pressure the government and that while she understood that some European countries are reluctant to impose sanctions, she said that “at this meeting, I asked just to be more brave .”

Samuel Petrequin in Brussels and Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed to this report.

2 dead, 1 missing after storm pounds central Greece

September 19, 2020

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Two people have died and one is reported missing in central Greece region of Thessaly after a storm pounded parts of the country overnight and caused flooding. Authorities identified the two victims as an elderly woman found dead in her flooded home and a 63-year-old shepherd who was swept by rising flood waters.

They said a woman who ignored firefighter and police instructions not to drive into an area where a bridge spans a river is missing. The country’s firefighting service said early Saturday that it had fielded almost 2,500 calls from trapped residents in central and western Greece or about removing fallen trees that were blocking roads or had caused property damage. The service reported rescuing more than 600 people.

Greece’s train operator, Trainose, said service linking southern and northern Greece was suspended. Water from a river that burst its banks damaged at least two bridges and several buildings, including the local health center in the Thessaly town of Mouzaki, which has collapsed. Parts of the stricken area are without electricity.

France seeks EU sanctions on Turkey over energy tensions

September 18, 2020

NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — France on Friday backed Cyprus' calls for the European Union to consider imposing tougher sanctions on Turkey if the Turkish government won't suspend its search for energy reserves in eastern Mediterranean waters where Cyprus and Greece claim exclusive economic rights.

French Minister for European Affairs Clement Beaune said sanctions should be among the options the 27-member bloc considers employing if Turkey continues to “endanger the security and sovereignty of a member state.”

“We believe that the European Union must be ready to activate...all available tools and certainly to resort to sanctions, if developments don't proceed in a positive direction," Beaune said after talks with Cypriot Foreign Minister Nikos Christodoulides in Nicosia.

EU leaders are set to hold a summit in a few days to discuss how to respond to Turkey's refusal to recall a warship-escorted research vessel it dispatched to a part of the eastern Mediterranean that Greece maintains is over its continental shelf. The dispute has ratcheted up military tensions between the two NATO allies.

The tensions appeared to ease in the last week, with Greek and Turkish officials having contact after Turkey temporarily pulled back the research vessel. But Ankara extended its gas search in waters southeast of Cyprus until mid-October.

Turkey doesn’t recognize ethnically divided Cyprus as a state and insists it have every right to prospect for hydrocarbons in the eastern Mediterranean. It has vowed vowed do defend its rightful claims to the region’s energy reserves, as well as those of breakaway Turkish Cypriots.

Cypriot officials insist the EU shouldn't set a “double standard" by imposing sanctions against Belarus for alleged voter fraud and police brutality while avoiding doing so when Turkey carries on its exploration at the expense of EU members.

Beaune said the EU cannot accept Turkish actions and that France has “committed" to resolving the issue while making its military presence felt in the eastern Mediterranean in support of its EU partners.

Migrants stranded at sea as powerful storm batters Greece

 September 18, 2020

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — A boat carrying dozens of migrants was stranded at sea Friday as hurricane-force winds and heavy rain battered the western coast of Greece, causing power outages and road closures.

Coast guard officials said due to the high winds, rescue boats were so far unable to approach the vessel believed to be carrying more than 50 migrants south of Greece's Peloponnese region. A powerful tropical-like storm named Ianos battered the western islands of Zakynthos, Kefalonia, and Ithaki overnight, causing flash flooding, property damage, power outages, and road closures mostly from downed trees, police and local authorities said. No injuries were reported. The storm, with winds exceeding 110 kilometers per hour (70 miles per hour), reached the western mainland Friday. Computer models suggested that the storm would not directly affect Athens but heavy rainfall was also expected in the Greek capital. Schools and stores were closed, and ferry services were suspended in many areas in western Greece as authorities advised residents to remain indoors.

"We are expecting the storm to progress with the same intensity for the six to nine hours in western Greece and then, weakened, see it head southward,” Civil Protection chief Nikos Hardalias said. “But areas that are not directly affected ... will see a large volume of water with heavy rainfall.”

US buildings closed in Portland after car-bomb threat made

August 22, 2020

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — At least two federal buildings in Portland have been closed and the FBI is investigating after a car bomb threat was made, the officials said Friday. The threat, which was received Thursday, warned of the intention to use a car bomb to target federal property in Portland, according to two law enforcement officials. A number of federal offices in the area have been closed because of the threat, the officials said. The officials could not discuss the investigation publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

Investigators are trying to determine whether the threat is credible, the FBI said in a statement. The Portland office of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court was closed because of a threat of violence in the area, according to the court’s website. Also closed was the Mark O. Hatfield Federal courthouse, which was the site of weeks of violent protests last month.

Demonstrators have taken to the streets of Oregon's largest city nightly since the May police killing of George Floyd and clashed repeatedly with federal agents dispatched to protect the courthouse. A statement on the courthouse website did not say why the building had closed.

The FBI's statement said: “If we develop information indicating a credible threat, we will notify the public.” Protesters this week have focused their ire on the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in Portland.

People in a group of about 100 late Thursday and before dawn Friday sprayed the building with graffiti, hurled rocks and bottles at agents and shined laser lights at them, Portland police said in a statement.

Agents set off smoke or tear gas and used crowd-control munitions to try to disperse the crowd, The Oregonian/OregonLive reported. Three people were arrested, police said in their statement. It wasn't clear if that building was included in the alleged threat or if the threat was connected in any way to those protests.

Associated Press writer Michael Balsamo contributed to this report.