The French government on Friday warned of increased police controls to impose travel restrictions in Paris and several other regions, as coronavirus cases continue to rise across the country.
Checks at train stations, airports and highway tolls will “increase from today,” said the prime minister’s office, which describes the situation as “critical” with the arrival of a third wave of infections.
The move came after France put three more departments under limited blockade, with some 20 million people, including those in the Paris region, banned from traveling more than 10 kilometers (six miles) from home, except for essential reasons.
There is also a night curfew across the country from 7pm.
Daily cases in France have almost doubled since the beginning of the month, reaching more than 45,000 on Thursday, with the number of people in intensive care now at 4,766, not far from the peak during the second wave in November.
In Paris, the pressure on hospitals is even greater, with the bulk of non-essential surgeries being canceled to free up beds amid the rapid spread of the most contagious British strain, which now causes most infections across the country.
Authorities said on Friday that 304 people had died from Covid in the past 24 hours, bringing the total to 93,709.
French President Emmanuel Macron was criticized for going against the advice of scientific experts and his health minister in late January, when he decided not to impose a national blockade.
“The next few weeks will be difficult. We will take effective measures at the right time and, in my opinion, there are no taboos,” said Macron late on Thursday.
“I have no mea culpa to issue, no regrets and no sense of failure,” he added in defense of his decision to keep the country in a semi-open state in late January.
– Won’t it slow the epidemic? –
Schools across the country remain open, although individual classes in high-risk departments are closed if only one student is positive, instead of three before.
“That will necessarily mean more class closings in the next few days,” Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer said on Friday, calling the closing of schools to reduce the virus as a “last resort”.
The number of new coronavirus cases in children under the age of 15 accelerated dramatically last week, the health official at Sante Publique France said on Friday.
“The British variant … is no longer contagious for children, but it is just as contagious for children as it is for adults,” said the agency’s head of respiratory infections, Daniel Levy-Bruhl.
France’s vaccination campaign has also been slow amid chronic dose shortages, with only about 10% of the population receiving at least one dose.
But more than 400,000 doses were administered on Friday alone, Health Minister Olivier Veran tweeted, and the government promised to open dozens of mass vaccination “supersites” in April.
Prime Minister Jean Castex called on France’s efforts to avoid a painful national blockade of a “third way” in its fight against Covid, but many medical experts say the restrictions are not hard enough.
“I understand the strategy of wanting to take gradual measures, but given the situation we are in, I am not sure if they will slow the epidemic,” Solen Kerneis, an infectious disease specialist at Bichat hospital in northern Paris, told AFP.
The main health surveillance body recommended offering vaccines to dentists and veterinarians on Friday in a modest extension of eligibility criteria, with a focus so far on vaccinating people over 75, medical staff and those with health problems. existing health care.
jmt-cg-adp-js / sjw / bp