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Brussels, Oct 23 (IANS) Amid a resurgence of fresh coronavirus cases across Europe, several countries in the continent have tightened their measures against the pandemic and in an effort to curb the further spreading of the disease.
While Germany and France saw their infection tallies hit new single-day highs on Thursday, the UK, Poland, the Netherlands, Austria, Croatia and Lithuania have all reported new daily records since pandemic began, reports Xinhua news agency.
Germany's Robert Koch Institute (RKI), the federal government agency for disease control and prevention, announced on Thursday that Covid-19 infections in the country increased by a record 11,287 within one day, pushing the total to 392,049.
"The situation overall has become very serious. At present, we still have a chance to slow down the further spread of the virus," RKI President Lothar Wieler told the media.
While the death toll also rose to 9,905, Wieler stressed that it had to be assumed that there would be more Covid-19 cases and fatalities in the coming days.
Meanwhile in France, the Public Health Agency on Thursday evening reported 41,661 new cases in the last 24 hours, a new record after October 17's 32,427.
The overall tally now stands at 999,043, while the death toll has increased to 34,237.
On Thursday, Prime Minister Jean Castex announced that starting from Friday midnight, curfews from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. will be extended to 38 more departments and the overseas territory of Polynesia.
About 46 million of France's 67 million residents are now requested to stay indoors at night.
In Italy, the first European country hit by the pandemic, over 21.7 million people, making up over one-third of the country's population, have been placed under curfew.
On Thursday, the country reported 13,860 new cases and 136 fatalities, which took the overall infection tally and death toll to 465,726 and 36,968, respectively.
In Greece, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has announced additional stricter restrictive measures to combat the pandemic, as a new daily high of 882 cases was reported.
A curfew is imposed from 12.30 a.m. until 5 a.m. and the use of face masks will be mandatory everywhere indoors and outdoors in areas with heavy epidemiological load classified as level 3 alert and the maximum 4 on authorities' Covid-19 monitoring map.
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson reiterated his stand to avoid a national lockdown in fighting against the pandemic, saying his government will work hard to protect jobs and put the country in a better position for an economic recovery.
The UK has so far reported a total of 813,451 coronavirus cases and 44,437 deaths.Meanwhile,
Meanwhile Ireland has been placed under a nationwide lockdown again.
Under what the Irish government calls a Level-5 or the highest response to the pandemic, all the people in the country are required to stay within 5 km of their homes except those who have to go to workplace or school or who have to leave home for some other special purposes such as buying food and visiting pharmacies or hospitals.
Also on Thursday, Denmark, Slovenia and Hungary reported new record daily infections in the past 24 hours.
--IANS
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