> You could have kept internal border controls except for essential work. Lack of internal borders in the EU is one of the most important features of the bloc,

> You could have kept internal border controls except for essential work. Lack of internal borders in the EU is one of the most important features of the bloc, both in terms of maintaining close integration that could prevent more intra-European wars and in terms of mere everyday convenience. I would gladly sacrifice the demographic most at risk of COVID (about half of all deaths in the EU so far have been in care homes) in order to avoid internal borders. Also, China has been able to eliminate COVID (and even that is subject to doubt) only through civil-rights violations that the West would not tolerate. Pointing to China and saying "They did it, so the EU could too" misses the point. Vietnam was able to avoid a surge in COVID cases only because they hadn’t yet got the huge number of cases that the EU had first without even being aware of it; of course if somewhere else is already suffering, and you aren’t, you can close the borders and avoid the problems from the start.