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FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT
PARIS The France He runs for cover to save Christmas, ready to resort to drastic measures against the coronavirus now, and hoping not to be forced to do so during the holidays. President Emmanuel Macron canceled a visit to the Creusot nuclear power plant to lead the first of two Health Defense Councils. At the end of the second Wednesday, new measures could be announced to deal with a critical situation.
The three hypotheses:
1) The current curfew, which does not cover the whole of France but only the most affected areas, could be extended to the entire national territory and be significantly anticipated, from 9 pm to 5 pm, for example; In addition, the government could proclaim a new blockade for the weekends.
2) Alternatively, Macron could announce a limited blocking to the areas most affected by the epidemic, such as the Ile de France, the Paris region, and to reinforce the curfew in the others.
3) The third hypothesis under consideration is new. confinement throughout the national territory, but less rigid and shorter than the spring. The idea is to keep schools open in any case, possibly even secondary schools, to ensure teaching and at the same time allow parents to work, smart work whenever possible. President Macron has always repeated that he wants to do everything possible to avoid a total lockdown, but without totally excluding it in principle. The new data: 50,000 new cases a day, but it’s actually probably 100,000, says Jean-Franois Delfraissy, chairman of the Scientific Council that provides the medical and epidemiological considerations to the government, who then makes the political decisions.
The unusually complex and articulate decision-making process. On Tuesday morning, the first defense council chaired by Macron to take stock of the situation; Prime Minister Jean Castex meets with political parties, parliamentary groups and social partners on Tuesday afternoon; Wednesday morning second defense council to make decisions and then communicate them to the public. We want to draw attention and hear all voices, prepare public opinion and defiant measures, which are a relative surprise: even in France, during the summer, many ruled out the arrival of a second wave, and the country seemed to dedicate itself to repairing the economic damage caused by the first wave, instead of preparing for the second. In addition, the mass testing campaign only partially worked: there are swabs, in Paris, for example, anyone can do them even in private laboratories, without a request from a doctor and even without a health card, for free, receiving the result by email at next day. But in the face of this considerable effort, the next part was missing, that of case tracking. The result is that the virus is out of control and that the three hypotheses under study are different gradations of a single response, the one that is judged to be the easiest and most primitive, namely, confinement. The second wave will probably be stronger than the first – says Delfraissy – and many of our fellow citizens have not yet realized what is coming.
The government asks to favor teleworking and is studying how to limit the impact of the new measures on the economy. If we redefine what we did in March, we do not run the risk of a recession of at least 10 percent – says the president of industrials, Geoffroy Roux de Bzieux – but the total collapse of the economy. But a blockade with many exceptions now, this is the government’s bet, it would always be better than in the Christmas period, even for the economy.
October 27, 2020 (change October 27, 2020 | 13:17)
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