A new health defense council is being held Wednesday morning at the Elysee Palace, during which new localized restriction measures could be adopted, in particular in Dunkirk, where the Minister of Health Olivier Véran is expected during the day%.

Globally, the vaccine controversy is swelling.

Follow the evolution of the situation live.

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Two days after the Alpes-Maritimes, new territories could be affected by localized restriction measures, while the coronavirus epidemic is not weakening in France, quite the contrary.

The subject will be at the center of the health defense council scheduled for Wednesday morning at the Elysee Palace.

Dunkirk, where the Minister of Health Olivier Véran is going, is particularly concerned.

Globally, the vaccination campaign is continuing, but the controversy over inequality of access to doses is growing.

Follow the evolution of the situation live.

The main information to remember

  • A defense council is held Wednesday morning at the Elysee Palace around Emmanuel> Macron

  • Olivier Véran goes to Dunkirk, where localized restriction measures could be adopted

  • More and more countries complain about unequal access to vaccines

Towards new restrictions in Dunkirk

After the coast of the Alpes-Maritimes, subjected to new confinement for two weekends, Dunkirk in turn expects new restrictions to cope with an outbreak of Covid-19 cases due to the English variant of the coronavirus.

Decided to territorialize its response to the health crisis, the government is considering "additional braking measures" after consultation with elected officials in the northern city, Matignon announced Tuesday.

The Minister of Health, Olivier Véran, will go there on Wednesday for a visit to the hospital center and a meeting with local elected officials, while a health defense council will be held at the Elysee Palace around the Head of State.

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After a meeting between the 22 mayors of the Urban Community of Dunkirk (about 200,000 inhabitants), its president Patrice Vergriete (DVG) proposed a "huge prevention campaign around the slogan 'zero gathering, zero regrouping'", with families and businesses to increase teleworking, but not re-containment.

Located on the northern coast, opposite England and not far from the Belgian border, Dunkirk has been facing an epidemic outbreak for more than ten days attributed to the stronger presence of the British variant, which is more contagious.

The increase peaked Monday at 900 cases per 100,000 inhabitants over the last seven days, even more than for the metropolis Nice Côte d'Azur (771) and more than four times higher than the national average (201).

The epidemic progresses, the hospital pressure stronger

France has 85,044 deaths from the coronavirus according to the latest figures released by the government.

This represents 431 more deaths in 24 hours.

Hospital pressure remains very high, with a slight increase in resuscitations noted on Tuesday.

In detail, there are 25,660 patients hospitalized for a coronavirus infection, 171 less than on Monday.

This is the only indicator in decline since the side of serious cases in the intensive care units, there is a slight increase with 28 patients more than at the last score, for a total of 3,435 patients.

France is also registering a large number of new cases, 20,064 in 24 hours.

That's about 500 more sick than last Tuesday at the same time.

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Controversy over access to vaccines

Argentine Presidents Alberto Fernandez and Mexican Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Tuesday demanded in Mexico City equal global access to vaccines against Covid-19, which they say are monopolized by rich countries.

Manuel Lopez Obrador called for UN intervention to ensure that all countries have access to vaccines.

"There are more than 100 countries that do not have a single dose of vaccine. It is totally unfair. Where is the universal brotherhood? The UN must intervene," he said.

At the same time as this controversy, the campaigns are continuing.

After several delays, the

Ukrainian

government

finally received its first vaccines on Tuesday, 500,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine produced by the Serum Institute of India, marketed under the name Covishield.

Afghanistan

launched the first phase of its vaccination campaign on Tuesday, which has so far been extremely limited in a country ravaged by violence on a daily basis.

The

Senegal

has also launched his campaign Tuesday with the recent purchase of 200,000 doses of vaccine Sinopharm Chinese, 10% of which were made available two of its neighbors,

Guinea-Bissau

and

Gambia

.

More than 2.47 million dead

The pandemic has killed more than 2.47 million people around the world since the end of December, according to a report established by AFP on Tuesday midday. The United States is the country with the most deaths (502,482), ahead of Brazil (248,529), Mexico (180,536), India (156,463) and the United Kingdom (120,757). These figures are globally underestimated. They are based on daily reports from national health authorities, without including reassessments based on statistical bases.