PARIS: Several European countries introduced new lockdown measures Saturday as they battled surging coronavirus infections.

Residents in Poland, parts of France and Ukraine’s capital Ukraine all woke up to new restrictions, with most shops shut and people urged to work from home.

The pandemic is still speeding up worldwide, with the number of new Covid-19 infections rising globally by 14 percent over the past week, according to AFP data.

More than a third of France’s population is now under a renewed lockdown as the country, along with several European neighbours, battles a third wave of the virus. But the curbs are lighter than those enforced at the height of the pandemic last year, with schools remaining open and hairdressers, cobblers and chocolate shops added to an expanded list of businesses allowed to accept customers.

The government has also scrapped the forms once required to justify all trips outside the home, which were widely derided as an example of excessive French bureaucracy.

On the sunny banks of the River Seine, some Parisians questioned whether the restrictions could really be described as a “lockdown” at all.