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The French government has been reluctant to impose a new lockdown that would further hit the economy, and business bosses have warned that a total shutdown would force another wave of layoffs and bankruptcies.
FILE: A member of the medical staff leaves a room protected by a transparent tarpaulin after caring for a patient infected with COVID-19 in the intensive care unit of the Franco-Britannique hospital in Levallois-Perret, north of Paris, on 9 April 2020. Image: AFP
PARIS – French officials said Tuesday that stricter restrictions are coming to counter an alarming rise in COVID-19 cases as doctors warned that many hospitals are only days away from being overrun by patients.
President Emmanuel Macron will address the nation on Wednesday night to present new measures to be decided at back-to-back defense council and cabinet meetings, the presidency said.
“We have to prepare for difficult decisions,” Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin told France Inter radio.
“At some point we have to make tough decisions … as our neighbors have,” he said, referring to the tough new measures announced for Italy, Spain and other parts of Europe.
The French government has been reluctant to impose a new lockdown that would further hit the economy, and business bosses have warned that a total shutdown would force another wave of layoffs and bankruptcies.
Instead, authorities imposed a curfew this month that now requires around 46 million people, two-thirds of the population, to be home from 9:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m., as the number of daily cases virus has increased.
Media reports say Macron, who met with senior ministers on the issue on Tuesday, could extend curfew hours, possibly with a complete lockdown on weekends, or order region-specific lockdowns. most affected.
Another option could be to postpone the return of students from the fall break that ends this weekend, particularly to colleges and universities.
‘OUT OF CONTROL’
Prime Minister Jean Castex, who met with heads of political parties and union leaders on Tuesday, said that the new measures against the spread of the coronavirus were “indispensable” and that the entire country must mobilize to “protect the lives of the French” .
Castex will be in charge of presenting the government’s decisions to parliament on Thursday.
France posted a grim record of 52,010 coronavirus infections in 24 hours on Sunday.
On Tuesday, it reported more than 33,400 new cases and 523 deaths from coronavirus in 24 hours, as well as a net increase of 74 intensive care admissions.
This brought the total number of people in intensive care to 2,918, more than half the country’s total capacity of 5,800.
Some hospitals have been forced to start transferring patients to less crowded facilities.
“The outbreak is out of control,” infectious disease specialist Gilles Pialoux of the Tenon hospital in Paris told BFM television.
He urged the government to adopt “a drastic measure, call it a blockade” for the entire country, despite the economic cost.
“The economy can recover, but it does not recover if intensive care fails,” he said.
More than 34,000 people have died of COVID-19 in France.
On Monday, the head of the government’s medical advisory panel, Jean-Francois Delfraissy, said the severity of the second wave of coronavirus had taken experts by surprise.
“This second wave will probably be worse than the first,” he said, warning that “many of our fellow citizens still do not realize what is coming.”
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