Covid-19: schools closed, confinement tighter, the different possible scenarios in France
French President Emmanuel Macron and Minister of Health Olivier Véran, March 29, 2021 in Créteil.
AP - Ludovic Marin
Text by: RFI Follow
5 mins
The French are again suspended from the decisions that will be taken during the weekly Sanitary Defense Council, chaired by Emmanuel Macron and scheduled for Wednesday March 31.
The situation in Île-de-France hospitals is explosive.
The flexible confinement announced two weeks ago has for the moment not the expected effects on the number of contaminations and does not make it possible to relieve the intensive care services.
Several scenarios are on the table.
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First scenario: the status quo.
No new restrictions but measures to relieve the resuscitation services: new evacuations of patients, reinforcements of caregivers to confined departments, or the planning of a
mass
vaccination
campaign for teachers.
Second possible scenario: the closure of schools.
And a third possible scenario: the closure of schools and the much stricter limitation of travel.
This last option is "
very complicated
" to defend, admits a ministerial adviser.
For two weeks, the government has insisted that there is no point in locking up the French, the majority of contaminations being done inside.
► To read also: Covid-19: France facing a critical health situation
Sorting patients, an unthinkable end
The executive therefore wants to be cautious about the possibility of a new turn of the screw.
The government's red line is sorting out patients.
However, “
we are not there
”, we assure Matignon, where we also point out the fact that “
doctors do not all say the same things
” about the situation.
The Minister of Health, Olivier Véran, insists that the hospital services will not be forced to reach this end.
“We will not let doctors be in a position to have to sort patients.
It's impossible.
The protection of the French will always, always, take precedence over any other concept.
"
Olivier Véran, Minister of Health, affirms that the government "will not let doctors be in a position to sort the sick"
Julien chavanne
Under pressure, the executive procrastinated.
A speech by Emmanuel Macron is not excluded, but again, nothing is decided.
Everything will depend in fact on the choices that the President of the Republic will make behind closed doors of the Health Defense Council.
In the meantime, in the opposition, the critics still fuse.
"What I reproach the President is to continue to maintain a vagueness, to such an extent that we still do not know if he will speak this Wednesday, this Thursday, or perhaps Friday, we do not know not too much.
"
Philippe Gosselin, deputy for Les Républicains, on Emmanuel Macron's communication on the health crisis
Aurélien Devernoix
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France
Coronavirus
Health and medicine
Emmanuel Macron
On the same subject
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Covid-19: France facing a critical health situation