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Emmanuel Macron is the French head of state He called a defense council meeting on Tuesday after the spread of the coronavirus epidemic in the eastern part of the country intensified.
Before Monday’s announcement by the French presidential office, Health Minister Olivier Véran did not rule out in an interview with the Sunday newspaper that the French will have to be quarantined a third time if the epidemic situation worsens at the national level.
According to official information, the Defense Council will assess the epidemic situation after the Christmas holidays and examine whether further restrictions are needed.
According to the Health Ministry, there are concerns in three eastern regions (Grand-Est, Bourgogne-Franche-Comté and Alpes-Maritimes), but “the epidemic has not gained so much force elsewhere outside these regions as to currently justify the quarantine national”.
If not this week though the government has not ruled out a closure in January if a third wave of the epidemic hits the country after the year-end holidays.
Mathieu Klein, the eastern mayor of Nancy, already called for local quarantine in Alsace on Monday due to the deterioration of the epidemic and also asked the government to accelerate the vaccination campaign in the regions most affected by the epidemic. He said the situation in local hospitals was already tense before Christmas, and the number of patients increased for three weeks.
“We never rule out measures that may be necessary to protect the population. That does not mean that a decision has been made, but we are monitoring the situation hour by hour,” the Health Minister told Le Journal du Dimanche in an interview on Sunday.
In a newspaper, Le Parisien, a government source said Monday that “we did not rule it out, but that does not mean it is on the agenda now” in quarantine.
“Olivier Véran regularly consults with local leaders. We pay attention to them. Local action is not ruled out,” said a government source.
However, the competent authorities also pointed out that more than 2 million people had been examined in the week before Christmas, which had caused an increase in the number of cases per day. In any case, the government deemed the six-week general quarantine from the end of October a success as it allowed the French to celebrate Christmas freely.
“Thanks to the quarantine before the holidays, it has become possible to have a relaxed vacation,” stressed the Minister of Health, who said that the mental health of the population is also very important.
Over the past seven days, the average number of cases per day has been 12,000, which is less than the 5,000 established by the government before quarantine. However, since the shutdown in early December, epidemic indicators have so far not increased at the national level, but have stagnated. The hospital cares for 24,000 infected people, 2,600 of whom are in serious condition, and their number is declining very slowly after admitting more than 1,500 patients a day.
Half of the beds in intensive care units are infected with coronavirus, but the rate is 80 percent in eastern regions.
Since the beginning of the epidemic, 62,746 people have lost their lives, 175 in the last 24 hours.
However, unlike Christmas, on December 31st, the government has no plans to lift the nightly curfew that begins at 8pm and advises everyone to celebrate New Year’s Eve at home. (MTI)
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