• The portrait.François Bayrou, an old political ruler to see the future of France

Four large French cities will go to high alert on Saturday in the face of a worrying advance in Covid-19 infections, Health Minister

Olivier Véran

announced on Thursday

, which leads to the application of more restrictive measures.

"The situation has deteriorated in several cities in recent days

," Véran said in his weekly press conference on the epidemiological situation.

Lille (north), Lyon, Grenoble and Saint-Etienne

- the three located in the southeast - will go on high alert on Saturday, which implies the total closure of bars and stricter sanitary protocols in restaurants.

Until now, only

Paris, Marseille

and the island of

Guadeloupe (Antilles)

, were under this criterion, although the minister warned that the dynamics is also worrying in other cities, such as

Toulouse (southwest) and Montpellier (south).

In France,

the maximum alert is declared when the incidence rate exceeds 250 positives per 100,000 inhabitants in a week

and 100 cases among the elderly, as well as when 30% of the beds in intensive care services are occupied by patients with Covid-19.

The general outlook is worrying, with indicators that continue to deteriorate at the national level.

In Paris, the director of the regional health agency (ARS),

Aurélien Rousseau

, warned today that hospitals must prepare for "a very strong tide" of new cases of Covid-19.

In Parisian hospitals there are about 2,500 patients with the virus and 40% of the beds in the intensive care services are already occupied.

The number of daily infections reached 18,746 on Wednesday, a record since testing became widespread.

The positive results rate increased to 9.1% from 4.5% a month ago.

"The virus has been spreading faster in recent weeks," President Emmanuel Macron had admitted on Wednesday.

"In places where it is spreading too quickly, especially among the elderly who are most at risk, and where there are more and more intensive care beds occupied by Covid patients, we must proceed with more restrictions," the president added.

However, it

excluded for the moment a new general confinement of the population

, such as the one decreed in March, when schools and non-essential businesses were closed for two months.

"We have not adopted that strategy, but rather that of holding our citizens accountable," he said.

France has registered

more than 600,000 infections and 32,000 deaths

from coronavirus so far and is one of the most affected countries in Europe.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

  • France

  • Paris

  • Europe

  • Coronavirus

  • Covid 19

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