The Economist Continental Europe Edition October 17, 2020

Iran shattered its single-day record for cases and deaths. The government said masks must be worn outdoors in Tehran. It had previously shut schools, mosques and other public spaces. But contact-tracing has been a challenge and many Iranians are ignoring the state’s restrictions. After the discovery of a dozen coronavirus cases in the Chinese port of Qingdao, city authorities launched an effort to test all of its 9m people in five days. There had been no reports of domestically transmitted infections since early August. The Czech Republic announced that schools, restaurants and bars would shut for three weeks. A national partial lockdown was introduced in the Netherlands. The number of daily cases in India started to climb again. They had fallen to 55,000, the lowest figure since August. For our latest coverage of the…

Politics More European countries reapplied tight restrictions on social life to counter a rise in covid-19 infections. Emmanuel Macron imposed a 9pm curfew on Paris and eight other French cities, saying that this was not the time for conviviality. A new three-tiered system for local restrictions was introduced in England, which caused outrage in the Liverpool region, the first area to be put in the highest tier. London was due to be placed in the second-highest tier. Pressure increased on the government to impose a nationwide “circuit-breaker” strict lockdown of two weeks or more. Many fear that would crush the nascent economic recovery. Germany announced a curfew on visiting bars and restaurants in hotspots. “We are already in a phase of exponential growth,” said Angela Merkel, the chancellor. Daily cases…

Politics More European countries reapplied tight restrictions on social life to counter a rise in covid-19 infections. Emmanuel Macron imposed a 9pm curfew on Paris and eight other French cities, saying that this was not the time for conviviality. A new three-tiered system for local restrictions was introduced in England, which caused outrage in the Liverpool region, the first area to be put in the highest tier. London was due to be placed in the second-highest tier. Pressure increased on the government to impose a nationwide “circuit-breaker” strict lockdown of two weeks or more. Many fear that would crush the nascent economic recovery. Germany announced a curfew on visiting bars and restaurants in hotspots. “We are already in a phase of exponential growth,” said Angela Merkel, the chancellor. Daily cases have risen…

THE FIRST stories from Xinjiang were hard to believe. Surely the Chinese government was not running a gulag for Muslims? Surely Uyghurs were not being branded “extremists” and locked up simply for praying in public or growing long beards? Yet, as we report in this week’s China section, the evidence of a campaign against the Uyghurs at home and abroad becomes more shocking with each scouring of the satellite evidence, each leak of official documents and each survivor’s pitiful account. In 2018 the government pivoted from denying the camps’ existence to calling them “vocational education and training centres”—a kindly effort to help backward people gain marketable skills. The world should instead heed Uyghur victims of China’s coercive indoctrination. Month after month, inmates say, they are drilled to renounce extremism and put…

Iran shattered its single-day record for cases and deaths. The government said masks must be worn outdoors in Tehran. It had previously shut schools, mosques and other public spaces. But contact-tracing has been a challenge and many Iranians are ignoring the state’s restrictions. After the discovery of a dozen coronavirus cases in the Chinese port of Qingdao, city authorities launched an effort to test all of its 9m people in five days. There had been no reports of domestically transmitted infections since early August. The Czech Republic announced that schools, restaurants and bars would shut for three weeks. A national partial lockdown was introduced in the Netherlands. The number of daily cases in India started to climb again. They had fallen to 55,000, the lowest figure since August. For our…

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP says Americans should re-elect him because of his record on the economy. Before covid-19, America enjoyed its lowest unemployment rate in 50 years, fast annual wage growth of almost 5% among the lowest-paid workers and a buoyant stockmarket. Mr Trump attributes all this to his three-pronged strategy of tax cuts, deregulation and confrontational trade policy, and says more of the same will revive the economy after the pandemic. Many voters agree. The economy is one issue where Mr Trump does not face a big deficit in the polls. Yet his administration’s economic record from before the pandemic is mixed. It got one thing right: when Mr Trump took office the economy was still in need of stimulus, which tax cuts and more spending helped provide. But that success…