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PARIS: On Sunday (January 24), new border controls went into effect in France as part of a massive effort to contain the spread of COVID-19 and prevent another national shutdown.
After a slow start to vaccinations, French health authorities reported that one million people had received coronavirus vaccines on Saturday.
But stubbornly high new rates of COVID-19 infections, hospitalizations and deaths fueled fears that France may need another total lockdown, to be the third, that will inflict even more devastation on businesses and everyday life.
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As of Sunday, arrivals to France from European Union countries by air or sea must be able to produce a negative PCR test result obtained within the previous 72 hours.
The requirement had already been applied to arrivals outside the EU since mid-January.
Travelers from the EU entering France by land, including cross-border workers, will not need a negative test.
About 62,000 people arrive each week at French airports and ports in other EU countries, according to Transport Minister Jean-Baptiste Djebbari.
Paris’ main international airport, Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle, has established test centers in a terminal dedicated to flights within the EU to allow arriving passengers who were unable to obtain a test in their home country to obtain it. before passing immigration.
The French health agency reported 23,924 new cases of COVID-19 in the previous 24 hours and 321 new deaths from coronavirus on Saturday, bringing the death toll in France to 72,877.
The total number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients was 25,800, of whom nearly 2,900 were in intensive care.
Also by Saturday, one million people in France had received at least one coronavirus puncture, Prime Minister Jean Castex said, four weeks after starting the vaccination campaign, first targeting people over 75 in residences and in health workers over 50 years of age.
Industry Minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher said she was “reasonably certain” that France would reach its goal of vaccinating 15 million people by the end of June, adding that to date more than 1.9 million have been received. of vaccine doses.
READ: Don’t talk on the subway, French doctors say, to limit the spread of COVID-19
Meanwhile, Health Minister Oliver Veran warned that if current measures, including a daily nationwide curfew starting at 6pm local time, prove insufficient, another shutdown cannot be ruled out.
“We need a curfew to show results,” Veran said.
“In the best of cases, we will be able to reduce the pressure of the epidemic. Otherwise, we will not wait for the month of March to act,” he told Le Parisien newspaper.
France was blocked twice in 2020, the first time between March and May and then from October to December.
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