LONDON -- Ireland became the first European country to reimpose a nationwide lockdown because of coronavirus concerns, with its government urging everyone who can to "stay at home."
Meanwhile in the U.S., federal health officials issued new guidance Wednesday that greatly expands the pool of people considered at risk of contracting the coronavirus by changing the definition of who is a "close contact" of an infected individual.
This morning, Ireland entered a six-week lockdown that includes new restrictions. Schools, however, remain open. The country, which has a population of about 5 million, has recorded more than 53,400 confirmed cases and 1,868 deaths.
A number of European countries have experienced a resurgence in coronavirus cases and hospital admissions. On Wednesday alone, at least 10 European nations announced record numbers of daily cases.
Spain became the first country in western Europe to accumulate more than 1 million confirmed covid-19 infections on Wednesday as the nation of 47 million struggles to contain a resurgence of the virus.
The health ministry said that its accumulative case load since the start of the pandemic reached 1,005,295 after reporting 16,973 more cases in the past 24 hours. The ministry attributes 34,366 deaths to covid-19.
As the numbers rise, authorities in charge of health policy in Spain's regions are tightening restrictions. They want to stem the surge that has been building in recent months while avoiding a second total lockdown of home confinements that stemmed the first wave of the virus but left the economy reeling.
The regional government of northern Aragon announced Wednesday the closure of the city limits of Zaragoza, Huesca and Teruel. Neighboring Navarra, which leads Spain in infections per 100,000 over 14 days, is preparing to become the first Spanish region to close its borders today. La Rioja also will close its regional borders on Friday.
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Spanish Health Minister Salvador Illa and regional heads of health will meet today to discuss their virus strategies and consider employing nightly curfews to target late-night partying as a source of contagion.
"I want to be very clear," Illa said Tuesday. "Some very hard weeks are coming."
Ireland has gone a step further with its national lockdown. Under the new restrictions, set to last until Dec. 1, people in Ireland are being asked to stay at home and to exercise within a 3-mile radius of their homes. Restaurants, cafes and bars can stay open for takeout and deliveries, but most nonessential retail establishments will close, including hairdressers and barbers. Only 10 people will be allowed at funerals.
Deputy Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said at a news conference that Ireland "will be the first country in Europe to go back into a national lockdown."
Varadkar said the move could result in 150,000 people losing their jobs and cost the government about $1.8 billion. But he said the country needed to take a "preemptive strike" against the virus "before it is too late."
Varadkar drew comparisons to the pandemic of 1918, noting that the second wave was worse than the first.
"That's not inevitable this time," he said. "We can make sure the second wave is only a ripple, but that depends on all of us."
Some commentators noted that there is a sense of exhaustion this time around.
Tanya Sweeney, a columnist for Ireland's Independent newspaper, wrote that "when lockdown was announced in March, we banded together in a sort of Blitz spirit, often keen to do our bit in the 'war' against covid-19. But now, as we enter into a second wave of lockdowns, the nights are getting longer and many of us, while keen to do the right thing are just a bit ... well, depleted.
KEEPING SCHOOLS OPEN
Like most countries in Europe, Ireland remains committed to keeping its schools open with in-person classes. In his address to the nation on Monday evening, Prime Minister Micheal Martin said children "need their education."
"We cannot and will not allow our children and young people's futures to be another victim of this disease," he said.
Martin said that only "essential workers" will be permitted to travel to work, adding that construction projects and most manufacturing will be allowed to continue. He also said the government would bolster financial support for businesses and individuals affected by the lockdown.
He added that "social isolation and anxiety is a very real issue for many people," and so those living alone or parenting alone or at risk of social isolation could pair up with another household to form a "support bubble."
"I understand, and I feel very personally and profoundly the sense of disappointment, the feelings of loneliness, perhaps even the despair, that this announcement will bring for many," Martin said.
"The days are getting shorter and colder, but I ask you to remember this: Even as the winter comes in, there is hope. And there is light."
Martin said that if everyone pulls together over the next six weeks, "we will have the opportunity to celebrate Christmas in a meaningful way."
Separately in Brazil, President Jair Bolsonaro on Wednesday rejected the announced purchase of 46 million doses of a potential vaccine against the coronavirus being developed by a Chinese company.
"The Brazilian people will not be anyone's guinea pig," Bolsonaro said on his social media channels, adding that the vaccine has not yet completed testing, which is the case with all potential vaccines for the virus. "My decision is to not purchase such a vaccine."
In the U.S., hospitalizations for covid-19 hit the highest point since Aug. 22, with New York doubling its count from early September and at least 10 other states reporting records.
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cited four national studies that predicted a probable in-patient increase of as much as 6,200 daily over the next four weeks.
The U.S. on Tuesday had 39,230 people in hospitals, the most since May 22, according to the Covid Tracking Project. Of those, 8,178 were in intensive care units; it's been two months since the U.S. had more under such care. The number on ventilators, 1,889, reached its highest since Sept. 10.
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Across the country, 37 states are reporting increased hospitalizations, including 21 states that have recently reported new records or are approaching previous highs, according to Johns Hopkins University data. While the trend is national, the hardest-hit region is the Midwest, according to the university.
New York's hospitalization count exceeded 900 for the first time since May and New Jersey's hit 844, highest since July. States reporting record hospitalizations on Tuesday included Wisconsin, Iowa, Nebraska and Ohio, which had 1,221 patients.
Ohio had 142 deaths for two weeks ending Oct. 17. It's predicted to have 220 deaths for the two weeks ending Oct. 31. That's a difference of 78 fatalities, the most in the country, for a total of 5,287, according to the Covid-19 Forecast Hub, which compiles data from more than 50 global research groups.
'CLOSE CONTACT'
The change by the CDC regarding the definition of who is a "close contract" of an infected person is likely to have its biggest impact in schools, workplaces and other group settings where people are in contact with others for long periods of time.
The CDC had previously defined a "close contact" as someone who spent at least 15 consecutive minutes within 6 feet of a confirmed coronavirus case. The updated guidance, which health departments rely on to conduct contact tracing, now defines a close contact as someone who was within 6 feet of an infected individual for a total of 15 minutes or more over a 24-hour period, according to a CDC statement Wednesday.
The update comes as the United States is "unfortunately seeing a distressing trend, with cases increasing in nearly 75 percent of the country," Jay Butler, the CDC's deputy director for infectious diseases, said Wednesday at CDC headquarters in Atlanta, in the first news conference administration officials permitted in more than eight weeks. People may be tired of the advice, Butler said, but mask-wearing is more important than ever this fall and winter as Americans head indoors, where transmission risks are greater.
As many as half of all people who have the virus don't show symptoms, "so it's critical to wear a mask because you could be carrying the virus and not know it," the CDC said. "While a mask provides some limited protection to the wearer, each additional person who wears a mask increases the individual protection for everyone. When more people wear masks, more people are protected."
Caitlin Rivers, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, called the updated guidance an important change.
"It's easy to accumulate 15 minutes in small increments when you spend all day together -- a few minutes at the water cooler, a few minutes in the elevator, and so on," Rivers said. "I expect this will result in many more people being identified as close contacts."
She added: "This change underscores the importance of vigilant social distancing -- even multiple brief interactions can pose a risk."
VACCINE TESTS
Separately, in a matter of weeks, one of the most closely watched human experiments in history will start to report early results, with data on prospective coronavirus vaccines possibly coming this month or in November from the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and the biotechnology company Moderna.
Progress toward a vaccine, or vaccines, has been steady, reassuring and scientific. Drug companies, working closely with the U.S. government and fueled by an infusion of more than $10 billion of taxpayer money, have developed, tested and scaled up a half-dozen potential vaccines at unprecedented speed.
Today, independent advisers to the Food and Drug Administration will convene their first full-day meeting to lay the groundwork for their coming consequential deliberations on whether to recommend specific vaccines for public use. Those votes are not binding, but the FDA typically follows the recommendations of its advisory committees.
"Going from where we were in January and February -- where we are going to be hit by this tsunami -- to very likely having a vaccine, or more than one vaccine, that is proven safe and effective within a year, is staggeringly impressive, and would only have happened with strong and effective federal action," said Robert Wachter, the chairman of the department of medicine at the University of California at San Francisco.
Wachter has criticized the administration's response to the pandemic, arguing it has cost tens of thousands of lives. But he called the vaccine effort "nearly flawless" so far -- words he said he found difficult to say.
Information for this article was contributed by Karla Adam, Lena H. Sun, Carolyn Y. Johnson and Michael Scherer of The Washington Post; by Joseph Wilson and Mauricio Savarese of The Associated Press; and by Elise Young of Bloomberg News.