ROME: The Italian and Spanish governments allowed some businesses to reopen on Tuesday, but some owners chose to stay shut, fearing it was too soon to lift the coronavirus lockdown in countries that were the hardest hit until the United States surpassed them.

Launderettes and stationery shops were permitted to reopen as the Italian government sought to gradually lift stringent lockdown measures imposed on March 9.

But not every shop owner rushed to reopen.

“Open in a desert? Why? A bookstore is a place where people interact — opening a business where no one walks by is dangerous from every point of view,” said Cristina Di Caio, a bookshop owner in Milan.

The pandemic and lockdown measures have crippled Italy’s economy and brought daily life to a standstill.

Most of the country’s 60 million people have been confined to their homes and most shops other than pharmacies and supermarkets have been shut.

Though the central government said some shops could resume work, officials in hard-hit northern regions including Lombardy and Piedmont refused to resume business.

Shops there would stay shut until May 3, when the countrywide quarantine is set to expire.

Lombardy is the epicentre of the outbreak, with nearly 11,000 deaths.

Opening shops “is absurd”, said the president of Piedmont, Alberto Cirio.

“I’m working on keeping people at home,” he said.

“Maintaining discipline is the only way not to waste the sacrifices made up until now.” But in the south, which has seen fewer deaths and infections, some shops welcomed the easing of restrictions.

At a bookshop in the Sicilian city of Syracuse, the usual tourists were gone but some loyal clients stopped by for the opening, entering one at a time.

“It was still like a party,” said owner Marilia Di Giovanni. “It’s the human dimension that’s started back up again.”

Bookshops were already in difficulty before the shutdown, hurt by competition from online retailers.

Some bookshop owners were angry that they were ordered to close but deliveries of books from online sellers were allowed to continue.

Spain flattens curve

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.

But while the fall in the number of new cases means hospitals in hard-hit regions like Madrid and Barcelona are no longer overflowing with people, “beds in intensive care units remain in a situation of high stress”, he added.

Some Spanish workers expressed concern that the relaxation of restrictions could trigger a new surge of infections. 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.

The Czech government will gradually reopen stores and restaurants from April 20, although people will continue to be required to wear masks.

Thousands of shops across Austria reopened on Tuesday, but the government cautioned that the country was “not out of the woods”.

Austria acted early to shut schools, bars, theatres, restaurants, non-essential shops and other gathering places about four weeks ago. It has told the public to stay home.

The Alpine republic has reported 384 deaths in total, fewer than some larger European countries have been suffering each day. Hospitalisations have stabilised.

Britain, where the government has come under criticism for its slow approach to testing and for not getting protective equipment to the frontlines of health care, has the fifth-highest death toll globally.

The toll in British hospitals rose to 12,107 on Monday and Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has said there would be no easing of lockdown measures when they come up for review this week.

Published in Dawn, April 15th, 2020