Paris (AFP)

France was still between "reprieve" and "armed vigilance" Monday in the face of the Covid epidemic, faced with the progression of variants of the virus which strike the region of Dunkirk (North) or the Moselle, one year after the first recorded death in the country.

For now, the executive's bet to avoid a general reconfinement of the country seems to hold.

New hospitalizations and entries into intensive care of Covid-19 patients have continued to decline over the past 24 hours, even if the circulation of the virus is not slowing down, according to Public Health France on Sunday.

The number of patients in sheaves, passed Friday for the first time in five days below the 3,300 mark, was stable on Sunday (3,299).

In the previous waves, they had been up to 7,000 in the spring, 4,900 in the fall.

"The number of cases is relatively stable, even in very slight decline," but the variants encourage "an armed vigilance", summarized Monday on RTL Didier Pittet, infectious disease specialist and epidemiologist at the University Hospitals of Geneva, president of the Independent Mission of assessment of the management of the Covid-19 epidemic in France.

For this specialist, the situation in the country today resembles "a reprieve linked to the presence of these variants", and we must not exclude "local measures which can be confinement, by district, city, region" .

- Misunderstanding -

But while the majority of the country's students are now on winter holidays, the authorities have chosen to delay on this last point: no local re-containment or closure of schools in Dunkirk or Moselle, regions that are part of the last of the three school zones not yet on winter holidays.

The mayor (DVG) of Dunkirk, Patrice Vergriete, who had asked with his colleagues from the urban community for the closure of colleges and high schools a week before the holidays, in the face of the accelerating traffic of the English variant, denounced Monday on France Bleu Nord measures "disconnected", saying they understand "the lack of understanding of the population".

No new restrictions either in Moselle, where it is the South African variant that worries, but a strengthening of vaccination and an "intensification" of tests, announced Friday by the Minister of Health Olivier Véran.

The "mister vaccine" appointed by the government, Alain Fischer, estimated Monday on BFMTV that it was necessary in this department in particular to "accelerate the acquisition of immunity", especially for health personnel, believing that it could s 'act to vaccinate "10,000 more people in Moselle".

Nationally, 2.9 million people had been vaccinated on Sunday, of which nearly 650,000 received their two doses.

- Increase vaccination -

And Professor Fischer reiterated that "the obvious priority is to vaccinate people at risk", which "represents 17 to 20 million people before the summer".

Then, if the vaccine deliveries go as planned, it will be possible to "vaccinate the rest of the population in a very, very important way this summer".

In the short term, the AstraZeneca vaccine, with less restrictive handling and already used for caregivers, "will allow the vaccination to be amplified" from the end of February, he said.

It will then be used by general practitioners, "who know how to prioritize among their patients" those who most need to be vaccinated, and pharmacists.

And to recall the objectives of the campaign: "save lives" and "arrive at a situation where the virus circulates less and where we can remove the barrier measures".

For the time being, the toll since the onset of the epidemic in France is very heavy: 81,814 deaths, recorded in one year exactly.

The first fatal case of Covid-19 was indeed recorded in the country on February 15, 2020. An 80-year-old Chinese tourist, who died in the Parisian hospital Bichat and originally from the province of Hubei, where the first cases of a new coronavirus, which is still poorly understood, had appeared a few weeks earlier.

burs-so / pr / fmp / nm

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