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French President Emmanuel Macron has announced a new lockdown aimed at halting an alarming acceleration in Covid-19 cases, which will take effect from tomorrow night until “at least December 1.”
Nonessential bars, restaurants and businesses will be forced to close, but unlike the two-month closure imposed last spring, students will continue to go to school, Macron said during a televised speech.
Factories and farms will also be allowed to operate, and some public services will function, to limit the economic damage that would result from the total closure of the country.
President Macron said: “The virus is spreading through France at a speed that not even the most pessimistic predicted.
“Just like last spring, you will only be able to leave your home to work, go to the doctor, help a family member, do essential shopping or go out for air shortly.”
Written statements justifying being outside will be required, he said, suggesting that fines will again be issued for violators.
He said: “If in two weeks we have the situation under better control, we can reassess things and hopefully open some businesses, in particular for the Christmas holidays.”
“I hope we can celebrate Christmas and the New Year with the family.”
Like other European countries, France has seen an increase in coronavirus cases that could soon overwhelm the country’s hospitals.
More than 3,000 intensive care beds now house Covid-19 patients, a number that Macron says is poised to hit around 9,000 in November.
He said France would strive to increase the number of available intensive care beds to 10,000, up from 5,800 today.
The new measures echo the eight-week lockdown France imposed in the spring, when hospitalizations and deaths caused by the Covid-19 epidemic peaked.
The shutdown was effective in containing the epidemic, but it began to spread again after it relaxed on May 11 and people began congregating again in classrooms, universities, bars and restaurants.
Yesterday, France reported 523 new deaths from coronavirus during the previous 24 hours, the highest daily figure since April, when the virus was most severe.
Doctors have warned that intensive care units run the risk of being overwhelmed.
The death toll in France, at more than 35,000, is the seventh highest in the world, according to Reuters data.
Earlier this month, Macron announced a nightly curfew in Paris and other big cities, but officials acknowledged this week that the measure had proven insufficient to reduce infection rates, requiring a more drastic response.
Patient transfer
The leader of Macron’s LREM party, Stanislas Guerini, appeared to be preparing the ground for a shutdown when he told France 2 television that the country needed “strong measures, powerful measures … and probably at the national level.”
Yesterday, there were 2,918 coronavirus patients in intensive care in France, more than half of the total capacity of 5,800 beds.
Almost 19,000 were in the hospital overall and France recorded more than 33,400 new positive tests in 24 hours, as some hospitals had no choice but to start transferring patients to less crowded facilities.
At the height of the epidemic, daily deaths sometimes exceeded 1,400.
At the time, France erected field hospitals and had to evacuate hundreds of patients from hospitals in the worst affected areas to less distressed areas, including some to Germany, Switzerland, Luxembourg and Austria.
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