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| - Millions of people in Ireland were getting set for a second national lockdown Wednesday, as Spain became Europe's first country to surpass a million cases of coronavirus. While Ireland prepared to become the first European country to enter a second lockdown Madrid's regional government was mulling fresh restrictions, after Spain topped one million cases since January 31 with a single-day increase of 16,973. Several European countries are resisting full blown national shutdowns after measures earlier in the year provoked widespread bitterness and deep recessions. But a persistent surge in coronavirus cases across the continent to well beyond the levels earlier this year is ramping up pressure to tighten measures. Britain, which has Europe's largest death toll of 44,000, said it was banning more than a million people in the north from mixing with other households, sparking warnings of "months of agony" ahead through the winter. The county of South Yorkshire, which includes the city of Sheffield, will enter into "very high" alert or tier three restrictions for at least four weeks from Saturday, the UK government announced. The decision will affect around 1.4 million people, taking the number under the very toughest restrictions to 7.3 million -- or 13 percent of England's population. Similar measures were recently announced for the northwestern cities of Liverpool and Manchester and the county of Lancashire after a surge in cases. Germany, despite a death toll around five times lower than Britain's, is also battling a rise in cases and announced that Health Minister Jens Spahn, a chief ally of Chancellor Angela Merkel and an architect of the government's pandemic response, had tested positive and would go into home isolation. In France, major cities including Paris were virtually deserted on the fifth night of a curfew affecting some 20 million people from 9 pm. The number of patients in intensive care in France has surged past 2,000 for the first time since May. Elsewhere in Europe, Poland's prime minister said he wanted "red zone" lockdown measures to be extended to the entire country amid a record spike in infections. The Czech government said it would curb movement and close shops and services to battle a huge spike in cases after latest European Centre for Disease Control and Prevention data showed the country of 10.7 million people had by far the most new cases and deaths per 100,000 inhabitants over the past two weeks. "There's a lot of people out there with this second shutdown (who) will really, really find it hard to come through," Dublin antique jeweller John Farrington told AFP as Ireland faced up to some of the dramatic measures, with non-essential business shutting nationwide and people told to stay at home. Across the world, businesses are still struggling to come back from the damage caused by the restrictions, while Wednesday also saw the first reported death in a vaccine trial -- a volunteer in clinical trials in Brazil developed by Oxford University. It was not clear if the victim had received the vaccine or a placebo in one of a series of trials to bring to market a vaccine to counter a disease which has left more than 1.1 million dead globally to date. Growing but patchwork restrictions are, just as in Europe, frustrating some in the United States, with California's latest plan to allow theme parks to reopen drawing an angry response. Californian authorities will allow parks including Disneyland and Universal Studios to reopen in counties with lower levels of transmission but only if strict protocols are followed. Ken Potrock, president of Disneyland Resort, said the state was "mandating arbitrary guidelines that it knows are unworkable and that hold us to a standard vastly different from other reopened businesses and state-operated facilities". Thailand's decision to begin reopening its tourism industry was also attracting controversy, coming as the country is convulsed by anti-government protests. A plane carrying 39 Chinese tourists flew into Bangkok from Shanghai late on Tuesday, as officials try to revitalise an economy brought to its knees, with eight million expected to lose their jobs by the end of the year. "Thailand will become an economic basket case if it doesn't bring back tourism," said tourism consultant Bill Barnett. Illustrating the struggles of businesses across the world, staff at the Charles Dickens Museum in London are also unsure of their future. "I'm absolutely confident that when the pandemic is over and international tourism returns to London we will absolutely bounce back," manager Cindy Sughrue told AFP. "But no one knows exactly when that point is going to be reached, and that's my concern now." burs-cdw/tgb
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