Covid-19: "do everything to avoid national confinement" in France according to Jean Castex
Paris, February 26, 2021: giant teddy bears as customers and an SOS sign in this restaurant.
Ile de France is one of the areas particularly monitored by the government and regional health authorities.
REUTERS - BENOIT TESSIER
Text by: RFI Follow
4 min
This Saturday morning, the prefects of the twenty departments particularly affected by the Covid-19 pandemic held a virtual meeting with Prime Minister Jean Castex and the ministers of Health and the Interior.
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Saturday morning, the head of government Jean Castex met, by videoconference and with the ministers of Health and the Interior, the prefects and directors of ARS of the twenty departments placed Thursday under "increased surveillance" because of traffic stronger of the virus and its new variants.
The Prime Minister asked the prefects of the 20 departments where the Covid-19 epidemic threatens to flare up on Saturday to strengthen the controls of the measures in force including curfews, recalling that the objective is to "do everything to avoid confinement national ”, announced Matignon.
Do everything, that is to say deploy the entire battery of measures taken at the national level (strengthening of controls, optimization of the vaccination campaign, deployment of saliva tests in educational establishments and compliance with directives relating to teleworking), but also “Adopt territorial measures” if necessary.
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The discussions thus focused on "the local epidemiological situations, the organization of consultations with local elected officials and the first trends which emerge from them," added Matignon, without specifying who from the government or the prefects would communicate on possible new restrictive measures.
The question is not to be for or against confinement but to do everything to avoid it.
The prefects meeting by videoconference this morning are working hand in hand with local elected officials to strengthen our strategy to fight # COVID19 territory by territory.
pic.twitter.com/ZM94HdvwyI
- Jean Castex (@JeanCASTEX) February 27, 2021
Curfew at 6 p.m. the week like the rest of the territory but also all weekend: to curb the epidemic, Nice and Dunkirk were already inaugurating this Saturday morning, and for at least two weekends, a new battery of restrictions health which is lying in wait for other large cities and departments, including Île de France, if the situation deteriorates.
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Tension in hospitals in Île de France
The Ile de France is under reinforced surveillance until next Saturday (March 6), when the government could announce new measures for the region.
The Regional Health Agency is sounding the alarm because it fears a saturation of hospitals.
"A worsening of the epidemic situation in the coming weeks is to be considered," warns the ARS.
In particular, the English variant, more contagious, which has become predominant in the Paris region, with a proportion exceeding 55%!
In one week, the incidence rate on 100,000 Ile-de-France residents jumped 40 points.
An increase deemed "worrying" by the health authorities.
As a result, level 2 of the white plan in the hospital has been activated.
For several days, health establishments in Île de France have been preparing to receive more patients with severe forms of Covid.
Some 800 Covid-19 patients are already hospitalized in intensive care units in the Paris region, a level equivalent to the end of October, when the whole country had been reconfined.
This Saturday, the capacity to treat these patients was almost doubled at the regional level to reach 1,127 beds, called "critical care".
In return, certain non-vital operations had to be deprogrammed.
Finally, this is a first since the start of the Covid crisis, the number of beds dedicated to the disease has been imperatively fixed for each health establishment, both in the public and in the private sector.
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Coronavirus
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France