Chart of the Week: Israel first country to return to national lockdown

Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, announced new measures to counter the spread of coronavirus. Starting on Friday, and lasting initially for three weeks, Israelis will not be allowed to travel more than 500m from their house (except to go to work), or to gather indoors in groups larger than ten. Schools will shut, but supermarkets and pharmacies will remain open. The measures make Israel the first country to impose a second national lockdown. With several European countries seeing an uptick in cases, could France, Spain or the UK be next? For now, leaders elsewhere do not appear to be in any rush to follow Mr Netanyahu’s lead. France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, has come close to ruling out a second confinement, owing to the “considerable” collateral damage from the first one. The British prime minister, Boris Johnson, meanwhile, has said that a second lockdown would be a “nuclear deterrent”.

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