How coronavirus exposed Europe's weaknesses

For many Europeans the moment coronavirus arrived on their continent was on February 23 when Italian authorities quarantined 10 small towns south-east of Milan. They watched, agog, as the carabinieri cordoned off access, trapping residents inside their infected neighbourhoods. Few had imagined that the kind of draconian controls imposed by China in Wuhan would be necessary or indeed feasible in a European democracy. The lockdown of Lombardy’s “red zone” should have punctured any complacency. And yet it took another two to three weeks for governments across the continent to appreciate the scale of infection in their own countries and take sweeping measures to contain it. Some countries coped admirably with the first wave — or had the good fortune of minimal exposure to the virus. Others were hampered by poor preparedness, indecisive leadership and discord between central, regional and local governments. Nations squabbled and failed to learn from each other. The EU itself wobbled under the strain. These are five of the key moments that shaped Europe’s early response — and, in some cases, continue to plague its handling of the pandemic as a second wave crashes over the continent.