Jean Castex in Tarbes, January 10, 2021. -

JM HAEDRICH / SIPA

The day after a new Health Defense Council, Jean Castex must hold a press conference at 6 p.m. this Thursday.

The executive must speak out on a possible curfew from 6 p.m. widened, or even generalized to the whole country, but a total reconfinement is not envisaged.

During this speech, the Prime Minister will be surrounded by no less than six ministers: Olivier Véran (Health), Jean-Michel Blanquer (National Education), Bruno Le Maire (Economy and Finances), Elisabeth Borne (Labor), Roselyne Bachelot (Culture) and Frédérique Vidal (Higher education).

A highly watched variant

In the morning, Jean Castex will first go to Metz, on the subject of vaccination which, after a start criticized for its slowness, must continue its rise: some five million people over 75 years old will be able to register from Thursday, on the Internet or by phone, to be vaccinated from next Monday.

If the extension of the curfew from 6 p.m. beyond the 25 departments already concerned by the measure, seems acquired, its extent remains to be determined.

On the other hand, a re-containment seems for the moment ruled out, according to several government sources, even if the executive is concerned about the circulation of the variant "VOC 202012/01", which has caused an epidemic outbreak in the United Kingdom.

While several other European neighbors - the most recent, Portugal - have decided to reconfine themselves, the French themselves seem to resign themselves to it: according to an Elabe poll, they are 83% to think that a third confinement will take place " in the next weeks ".

The consequences of the still uncertain holidays

The French health situation is "paradoxical", highlighted Wednesday the president of the Scientific Council which guides the choices of the executive, Jean-François Delfraissy.

“On the one hand, we have a France which is better than all the European countries (in terms of contamination);

on the other hand, we have figures that have stagnated, or even increased slightly since mid-December, we do not yet have the exact impact of the consequences of the December 31 holidays, and we have a bed occupancy rate in hospitalization and resuscitation relatively high, but which does not get carried away, ”he explained on France Info.

About 20,000 new cases are recorded each day, far from the 5,000 expected by the government in mid-December.

On Wednesday, more than 23,000 contaminations were recorded in 24 hours and hospital pressure does not weaken, according to data from Public Health France.

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