Paris (AFP)
The departments of Aube, Nièvre and Rhône will be added to the sixteen subjected since Saturday to reinforced braking measures to face the new outbreak of the Covid-19 epidemic, pending an acceleration of vaccination.
The incidence rate in the Rhône, and in particular in Lyon, is approaching the 400 mark, to 383 per 100,000 inhabitants, and reaches 329 in the Nièvre and 445 in the Aube, according to Public Health France.
The government, criticized by the opposition and scientists on the scale and slowness of its measures, remains faithful to its strategy of territorialization and graduated response to the epidemic.
This new turn of the screw was expected, Emmanuel Macron having underlined Tuesday that "if other territories" knew the same degradation of their indicators, it would be necessary "without doubt to hear it".
- No more than six outside -
Gatherings of more than six people outdoors are prohibited throughout the country, in an attempt to curb the spread of the Covid-19 virus, the Interior Ministry told AFP on Wednesday evening.
Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin asked the prefects of the 16 departments already subject to restrictions for a "strict" application of this ban, said his entourage.
The police were asked to show "good judgment and common sense", it was added, specifying that "the police will verbalize the facts characterized by abuse of the rule" .
These measures, which are the variation of the decree of March 19 published after the announcements of Prime Minister Jean Castex, do not apply for declared events as well as in certain other cases (large families, outdoor sport, etc.).
If the government measures "are fully applied, they will have an effect on the incidence in our country" of the virus and on the level of occupancy of places in intensive care, defended Gabriel Attal.
Like Emmanuel Macron the day before, he insisted on the need to resort, for companies that can, to teleworking as much as possible, and again promised increased controls and sanctions.
Prime Minister Jean Castex "is still trying to avoid a third confinement", confides a government source to AFP, while in Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel, much criticized for wanting to put the entire country under cover for the Easter weekend, had to backpedal apologizing.
The Minister of Health Olivier Véran defended in the afternoon the strategy of the government during a debate in the National Assembly on "the follow-up of the health crisis".
"The next few weeks are going to be very difficult" but "we are at a turning point", thanks to the vaccination campaign.
"Outside big damage, inside (in the Assembly) small debate", lambasted Jean-Jacques Gaultier (LR), in unison with the oppositions who denounced the lack of "transparency" of the government.
In the executive, a second minister, that of Culture, Roselyne Bachelot, aged 74, was hospitalized, in a "stable state", assured his entourage Wednesday morning.
Labor Minister Elisabeth Borne, hospitalized on Monday, announced her discharge from the hospital.
- "Sort the sick" -
Faced with the saturation of hospital services, part of the medical world is booming.
Epidemiologists and doctors are calling for strict containment in areas where the epidemic is on the rise, such as in Ile-de-France.
The measures taken "will probably have no impact on the current situation", judge Karine Lacombe, head of the infectious diseases department of the Parisian hospital Saint-Antoine, in Le Parisien.
"We will be obliged, quickly and if nothing is done, to sort out the sick, which we did not do last spring," she warns.
The president of the Ile-de-France region Valérie Pécresse proposed Wednesday to bring forward the spring break by two weeks to halt the progression of the Covid-19, when the mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo prefers as an "alternative" the acceleration of vaccination of teachers.
According to an Elabe poll for BFMTV, a "majority of French people" consider that the measures announced by the government on Thursday are "not coherent" (74% of those questioned) and "not effective in fighting the epidemic" (73%) .
The number of Covid patients treated in intensive care has increased steadily in recent days, from 4,400 Sunday to 4,651 Wednesday, to approach the peak of the 2nd wave of autumn (4,900 on November 16).
In Martinique, where the epidemic is starting again, the prefecture has announced a curfew as of Friday from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m., for three weeks.
As elsewhere in Europe, the executive is counting on the vaccination that Emmanuel Macron promised on Tuesday to accelerate and extend to 70-75 years without comorbidities from Saturday and from mid or end of April to teachers.
Gérald Darmanin announced on Wednesday the opening of 38 vaccinodromes managed by 25,000 firefighters trained in vaccination and 2,500 in charge of logistics.
According to the latest report from the Ministry of Health, nearly 9.4 million people received a first dose, of which 2.6 million were vaccinated with two.
ggy-adc-bur-laf / rh / cbn
© 2021 AFP