(CN) – Friday marked the 75th anniversary of the surrender of the Nazi regime but instead of mass celebrations and touching scenes of elderly World War II survivors being feted, the old capitals of Europe – London, Paris and Moscow – found themselves combating a new enemy that's left squares and boulevards empty of people and parades and citizens hunkering inside homes.
The coronavirus pandemic muted commemorations for the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II, the bloodiest conflict in history and one that left Europe in ruins.
The occasion was marked by quiet wreath-laying ceremonies. In Paris, French President Emmanuel Macron lit the eternal flame at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in front of the Arc de Triomphe. In London, a military flyover and a nationwide two-minute silence marked the end of the war. In Berlin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel laid a wreath at the Central Memorial of the Federal Republic of Germany for the Victims of War and Tyranny.
Instead of rejoicing the end of that horrific war, Europe is fighting a new invisible enemy as it desperately tries to contain the novel coronavirus. Many leaders, including Macron and Merkel, have called the virus the biggest challenge facing the continent since the end of the war.
In little more than two months, the pandemic has shattered Europe's economies, strained its politics, drained its public treasuries and left its future murky.
And the dead keep mounting: More than 150,000 people in Europe have died from Covid-19, the respiratory disease caused by the coronavirus, which first emerged in China last December. More than 1.4 million Europeans have tested positive. But deaths and new infections are declining in much of Europe and severe lockdowns are slowly being lifted.
Still, death tolls remain staggering. On Friday, the United Kingdom reported 626 new deaths, bringing its official toll to more than 31,000, the highest in Europe. The other hardest-hit countries – France, Spain and Italy – each reported more than 200 new deaths.
As the wave of death in Western Europe subsides, the virus now is hitting Russia with ferocity. In an eerie repeat of what happened in Western Europe, Russia is reporting troubling statistics with about 10,000 new infections a day. Russia has reported 187,859 total infections – the fifth highest in the world – and 1,723 deaths.
“Russia has experienced a delayed beginning to the epidemic,” said Dr. Michael Ryan, the head of emergencies at the World Health Organization, during a news briefing Friday.
He said Russia has increased testing and that is one reason for the spike in confirmed cases. He also said “the disease is clearly having an impact” and in response “the government has shifted its approach.”
He said Russia, like other countries, has struggled to track down potential carriers of the virus through what is known as contact tracing. That involves finding people and testing those who were in contact with someone infected.
“Once you reach intense community transmission it becomes very difficult to do surveillance, contact tracing,” Ryan said. “For Russia and other countries in Europe, once you get behind the curve” the only options available are lockdowns, he said.
Instead of calling it a lockdown, Russian President Vladimir Putin imposed what has been called a nonworking period. That is to last until at least Monday, though it may be extended. In Moscow, where the vast majority of the infections have been found, a lockdown has been imposed until the end of May.
Russia may have very dark days ahead of it indeed. Similar to the United Kingdom, it was hesitant to impose a lockdown and then its prime minister, Mikhail Mishustin, announced he had tested positive. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson also fell ill with Covid-19 and his government has been accused of bungling the response to the pandemic.
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