More Covid Restrictions in Europe as Global Covid-19 Cases Top 40M

But infections have doubled in the wealthy Alpine nation in the last seven days, prompting the Swiss government to join fellow governments in introducing new Covid restrictions in Europe.

Covid restrictions in Switzerland now includes compulsory masks-wearing in public spaces indoors and limits on public gatherings.

"The second wave is here, earlier and stronger than we expected, but we are prepared," Health Minister Alain Berset told journalists.

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The canton of Bern also ban public events of more than a thousand people, which will hit professional football and hockey matches.

France on the weekend imposed its own overnight curfew in nine cities including Paris, affecting 20 million people, after announcing a record 32,400 new infections on Saturday.

And Italy announced fresh curbs on Sunday night in response to its own snowballing second wave of contagion, after enduring Europe's first major outbreak earlier this year.

"We cannot waste time," said Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, flagging bans on amateur team sports and earlier closures for bars and restaurants.

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The new Covid restrictions in Italy were intended to avoid harsher measures that could "seriously endanger" continental Europe's third-largest economy, already reeling from a two-month nationwide lockdown only lifted in May.

'We have to try to live normally'

An even longer lockdown began coming to an end in Australia on Monday, where the five million inhabitants of Melbourne were allowed to leave their homes for more than two hours a day for the first time since July.

Residents dashed back to reopened salons and golf courses that had been closed for more than 100 days, though restaurants and most other retail businesses will remain shut until November at the earliest as the authorities monitor case numbers.

"I'm not doing what is popular, I am doing what is safe, because we don't want to be back here again," said Daniel Andrews, the premier of Victoria state of which Melbourne is the capital.

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