Paris (AFP)

Confining as a last resort, as in Pas-de-Calais this weekend, and relying on vaccination to hope for better days: in the face of a Covid-19 epidemic that is persistently rising but not explosive, the executive wants to fit on a ridge line.

Curfew at 6 p.m. during the week, and at home on Saturdays and Sundays: nearly 1.5 million inhabitants of Pas-de-Calais will experience, for four consecutive weekends, the same fate as the inhabitants of Nice and the coast of the Alpes-Maritimes or the agglomeration of Dunkirk.

“We don't have much choice but it's starting to do a lot,” reacts Marc Dessailly, manager of a children's clothing and footwear store in Arras.

On the other hand, the Paris region, where six out of eight departments have an incidence rate of over 300 new cases per 100,000 inhabitants (over seven days), well above the maximum alert threshold of 250, has escaped this restriction. additional, described as "inhuman" by the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo.

In total, the reinforced surveillance concerns 23 departments, where the executive invites "not to go out, as much as possible" of the borders.

Non-food shopping centers of more than 10,000 m2 (and no longer 20,000) will be closed there, in addition to other sectors that have lowered the curtain for four months, such as bars, restaurants, all cultural venues or sports halls. , with no prospect of reopening.

- "General mobilization" -

Because despite the restrictions that last, the epidemic situation is "still worrying", warns Public Health France (SpF), noting a new increase in cases detected during the last week of February, to 149,307.

New hospitalizations were also up slightly, to 9,613, as were intensive care admissions, to 1,871.

Since the start of the week, more than 1,400 Covid-19 patients have died, or 87,835 dead since the start of the epidemic.

But if the general context remains degraded, SpF also notes an "improvement of all the indicators among people aged 75 and over, in line with the increase in vaccination coverage".

To accelerate the pace of vaccination, this wish returned as a leitmotif throughout the government press conference on Thursday.

"Our desire is clear: to vaccinate as quickly as possible, using all the doses already available. From this weekend, tens of thousands of French people will be able to have accelerated access to it in the departments most affected by the disease. 'epidemic ", tweeted Olivier Véran, when 3.2 million people received a first dose and nearly 1.8 million, a second, out of about 7 million doses available in France, according to the minister.

- Caregivers under pressure -

The executive recalled its objectives: at least 10 million first injections by mid-April, 20 million by mid-May and 30 million by the summer.

Concretely, he wants to put the turbo thanks to the hundreds of thousands of doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine remained in the cupboards, the product being until now reserved for caregivers, some of whom have shunned it, and to 50-64 year olds suffering from comorbidities.

New scientific studies confirming its effectiveness on the elderly allowed this week to give the green light to a vaccination of the most vulnerable over 65s, which will be authorized to pharmacists, nurses and midwives in addition to general practitioners, according to a decree published on Friday.

Now, the main audiences authorized to be vaccinated are nursing home residents, those over 75 in the city and the most vulnerable over 50, as well as all health professionals.

But with 40% of caregivers vaccinated in nursing homes and 30% of all caregivers and facing the risk of infection in the hospital, "clearly this is not enough", warned Olivier Véran.

The minister does not rule out seizing the ethics committee to open the debate on the issue of compulsory vaccination for caregivers.

"Vaccination hesitation is (...) not new. It affects the entire population, caregivers are not unscathed," retorted on Friday the inter-hospital collective (CIH), for whom caregivers "had been neglected "at the very start of the campaign, against a backdrop of" vaccine shortage ".

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