In France, hospital pressure remains strong.
To avoid national re-containment, the government is counting on the expansion of vaccination, but also on restrictive measures at the local level.
A health defense council is to be held on Wednesday.
Follow the evolution of the situation live.
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Will this acceleration be enough to avoid a national reconfinement?
While the health authorities are still worried about a rebound in the coronavirus epidemic, the government is playing the card of expanding its vaccination campaign, including broadening the criteria for benefiting from the AstraZeneca vaccine.
But new measures could still be taken, 20 departments still being closely monitored.
A health defense council is due to be held on Wednesday, and new measures could be announced in the coming days.
Follow the evolution of the situation live.
The main information to remember
The number of intensive care patients is on the rise
A health defense council is to be held on Wednesday
The government expands its vaccination campaign
More than 2.5 million deaths worldwide
Hospital pressure remains strong
3,586 people were treated in intensive care on Tuesday evening, a figure up slightly from the day before.
The total number of people hospitalized with Covid-19 reached 25,263 on Tuesday, up from Monday (+1,705 people).
Also in 24 hours, 301 people died of Covid-19 in hospital, after 379 on Monday, the highest figure recorded for seven days.
In total, 87,246 people sick with Covid-19 have died since the start of the epidemic.
Also on Tuesday evening, 22,857 positive cases were recorded.
The positivity rate, which measures the percentage of positive tests on all tests, was 7.3% as the day before.
It stood at 6% in mid-February.
Towards new restrictive measures?
While localized confinements are imposed on weekends on the entire coast of the Alpes-Maritimes and in the urban community of Dunkirk, 20 departments, which cover in particular Paris, Lyon and Marseille, are still placed under increased surveillance by the government.
A health defense council is to be held on Wednesday, after consultations between state representatives and local elected officials.
But the mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo has already reiterated her opposition to confinement of the capital at weekends, advocating on the contrary the access of the population to public spaces.
Parisians are torn between resignation and irritation, as Europe 1 has seen in the streets of the capital.
Read our report.
On the other hand, the health situation in Moselle is "in the process of improvement", declared Tuesday the prefect, Laurent Touvet, stressing however that it was necessary "to be very careful in the interpretation of these first signs".
France steps up on vaccination
To try to avoid a national reconfinement, the government is accelerating its campaign and extending the vaccination against Covid-19 as much as possible.
Two and a half million additional people thus become eligible, with the broadening of the criteria for benefiting from the AstraZeneca vaccine, following the encouraging results of studies carried out in the use phase in Great Britain.
Until now reserved for healthcare professionals and 2 million people aged 50 to 64 with comorbid conditions, this vaccine will now be offered to 65-75 year olds with these same pathologies.
This expansion was validated on Tuesday by the High Authority for Health (HAS), which also recommended that all vaccines can be administered by pharmacists, nurses and midwives, in addition to doctors, and extended the list of audiences considered priority.
For Gilles Bonnefond, national president of the Union of trade unions of dispensing pharmacists, this is "very good news".
Find his interview here.
"In March, we should be able to offer 6 million additional first-time injections for the French, which will bring to 9 million the number of French people who will have received at least one injection at the end of March, and this will be even more in April, "for his part promised the Minister of Health, Olivier Véran, during questions to the government on Tuesday afternoon.
Vaccines for all in sight in the United States?
US President Joe Biden assured Tuesday that the United States would have enough vaccines for all American adults "by the end of May".
Three weeks ago, he mentioned a deadline at the end of July.
Joe Biden also confirmed an agreement between pharmaceutical giants Merck and Johnson & Johnson to increase the production of the latter's vaccine.
The White House tenant also announced that Johnson & Johson's vaccine production centers would now operate "24 hours a day, seven days a week."
Johnson & Johnson's vaccine was granted emergency use approval in the country last weekend, for adults 18 years of age and older.
It has two significant logistical advantages: it can only be administered in a single dose and can be stored at refrigerator temperatures.
Johnson & Johnson has currently committed to ship 100 million doses to the United States before the end of June.
Record number of deaths in Brazil
Such a wind of optimism is not appropriate in Brazil, where the epidemic has killed a record 1,641 in the last 24 hours, and where contaminations are experiencing a new phase of acceleration.
Over the past seven days, the average daily fatality has risen to 1,262.
Until February, this average had never exceeded the bar of 1,100 daily deaths.
According to experts, the current rebound in the epidemic is linked to the festivities of the end of 2020 and the Carnival celebrations, even though many states had banned gatherings.
At the same time, the vaccination campaign launched in mid-January had to be interrupted in several regions for lack of doses.
More than 2.5 million deaths worldwide
The pandemic has killed at least 2.54 million people worldwide, according to a report compiled by AFP from official sources Tuesday at 11 a.m. GMT.
The United States is the country with the most deaths (516,456), followed by Brazil (257,361) and Mexico (186,152).
These figures, based on the daily reports of the health authorities, without including the reassessments based on statistical bases, are generally underestimated.