With coronavirus infections rising and a contagious new variant threatening to accelerate the pandemic, France has implemented a stringent 6 p.m.-to-6 a.m. curfew. Citizens nationwide are sequestered indoors, and businesses must close down.
In Quebec, Canadian officials imposed a similar restriction earlier this month, running from 8 p.m. to 5 a.m. It has frayed nerves: Notably, a woman who was walking her boyfriend on a leash at 9 p.m. has argued that this was permitted during the curfew, surely one of the pandemic’s most unexpected moments.
When Joe Biden issued an executive order this week requiring mask-wearing on federal properties, it was framed as the least controversial provision he would issue early in his presidency.
“It’s not a political statement,” he said, “it’s a patriotic act.”
In September, after the Food and Drug Administration authorized Covid-19 treatments based more on presidential puffery than on clinical data, some physicians decided to take matters into their own hands.
LONDON — British front-line workers who were applauded on doorsteps in the early weeks of the pandemic now confront a torrent of polarization and misinformation.
BORING, Ore. (AP) — A line formed out the door during the lunch rush at the Carver Hangar, a family-owned restaurant and sports bar, and waitresses zipped in and out of the kitchen trying to keep up with orders as customers backed up in the lobby.
It was the first Wednesday after Thanksgiving, and Durham County’s COVID-19 cases were surging much more rapidly than Rodney Jenkins, the county health director, wanted to see.
