The French public health agency reported, Wednesday, September 16, 9,784 new infections due to the new coronavirus in 24 hours and an increase in hospitalizations and admissions to intensive care units.
The number of patients hospitalized in the last seven days is 2,976, 263 more than Tuesday.
Among them, 508 were admitted to intensive care, 29 more than the day before.
The test positivity rate remained stable at 5.4% and 862 foci of infection are under investigation (+77 in 24 hours).
Forty-six additional deaths have also been recorded, bringing the toll to 31,045 deaths since the start of the epidemic in France, and confirms an ascending curve.
Towards a strengthening of health measures
After Lille, Marseille and Bordeaux, the government is preparing the spirits for a hardening of health constraints in several territories in the face of the rebound of the Covid-19 epidemic.
The Minister of Health, Olivier Véran, will once again go to the front line Thursday at 5 p.m. to defend and detail the anti-Covid-19 policy, in a press briefing which will once again become weekly.
He will make "a clear, educational presentation of the strategy" of the executive "to live with the virus", explained the spokesman of the government, Gabriel Attal, after a council of ministers again dominated by the management of the pandemic.
"Full transparency" will be given "on the figures" of contamination, "department by department", assured President Emmanuel Macron, who again warned that the virus would continue to rage "for months" in France.
"It is running faster and faster in certain departments, which leads the government to tighten the rules a bit," he added, encouraging the French to "hang on" before "better days", after having assisted, masked, at the 17th stage of the Tour de France, in Méribel (Savoie).
High risk re-entry
Among the metropolises where constraints could be announced is Lyon, the Rhône department with an incidence rate of 168 cases per 100,000, the second most important in the metropolis after Bouches-du-Rhône.
In Toulouse, the first city to impose the wearing of a mask, the LR mayor, Jean-Luc Moudenc, considers a strengthening of health measures inevitable.
"We see the indices deteriorate, so we cannot stand idly by, we have a duty to go further, we are working on it. We must decide on the extension (of wearing a mask) and additional measures ", he said Wednesday during a press conference.
While overall, France is seeing an increase in the number of cases and hospitalizations, the government must respond not only to this rebound but also to overcome the growing mistrust of the population.
Nearly one in two French people find that the executive does not "take enough precautions" and 62% do not "trust" it to fight the epidemic, 6 points more than at the end of August, reveals an Elabe poll for BFMTV.
In addition, the return to school and university remains at high risk: 81 schools and a little over 2,100 classes have been closed since the beginning of September.
But this only represents "0.13% of some 60,000 schools in the country," said Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer.
Maintain major events as much as possible
In application of the new "territorialized" strategy, any new anti-Covid-19 measure will be announced on site by the prefect, after consultation with local elected officials, in order to avoid accusations of vertical decisions taken from Paris.
The state will retain its exceptional powers to restrict gatherings and travel, the Council of Ministers having adopted a bill on Wednesday that extends these authorizations by six months, until April 2021.
"Given the health situation, it is necessary to anticipate and give us all the tools to continue fighting the epidemic," explained Gabriel Attal.
It is this device that made it possible to announce on Monday more restrictive measures in the Bouches-du-Rhône, the North and the Gironde - ban on dance evenings in bars and student parties, suspension of school trips and limitation of gatherings in parks and beaches.
But, Emmanuel Macron insisted, "whenever" it is possible to organize major cultural or sporting events, "we must hold them, with constraints".
He cited as an example "the extraordinary work" carried out by the organizers of the Tour de France, or the Roland-Garros tennis tournament, scheduled from September 27 to October 11.
To the list of the many canceled events was added Wednesday the British film festival of Dinard, which was to be chaired by Emmanuelle Béart from September 30, because of "worrying figures" of contamination in Ille-et-Vilaine.
With AFP and Reuters
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