Paris (AFP)

Important turn of the screw in Overseas: Reunion and Martinique are preparing to reconfine in the face of the meteoric rise in Covid-19 cases and a situation described Thursday as "dramatic" by Jean Castex who regrets the "reluctant to vaccination ".

While the increases in Covid-19 cases due to the Delta variant have been concentrated in recent weeks, in metropolitan France, mainly in tourist areas - the Atlantic coast and the Mediterranean coast - the government also considers the epidemic situation "worrying" in the Grand Est , particularly in the Bas-Rhin and among young people.

"Vaccination is absolutely essential", hammered the Prime Minister in front of the elected officials of Lot-et-Garonne at the town hall of Agen, evoking the countries which "would dream of being vaccinated but which do not have access to it and where the pandemic wreaks havoc.

"Nothing beats proof by example", he added for the sake of dialogue and pedagogy, after Emmanuel Macron's very firm speech on July 12, also recalling that the government had declared the day before "the state of health emergency in a number of overseas territories where the situation is dramatic because they are reluctant to vaccination".

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Since Wednesday, Guadeloupe, Saint-Martin and Saint-Barthélémy have come to Reunion and Martinique which had already been in a state of health emergency since July 13.

- "Clear difference" between vaccinated and unvaccinated -

However, "there is really a clear difference, visible between the populations which are vaccinated and those which are not vaccinated", affirmed Jean Castex.

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Victim of the Delta variant and very little vaccinated, Reunion is returning to partial confinement during the day "from this weekend" and for two weeks, "reinforced by a strict curfew from 6:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m.", a first since confinement of spring 2020, announced Thursday the prefect of Reunion Jacques Billant.

"From 5:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., travel is limited to a radius of 10 km around his home from Monday to Saturday" and this radius is "lowered to 5 km on Sunday," said Mr. Billant, stressing that the Reunionese will only be able to "come and go, within a radius of 10 km, in stores" where the mask must be worn continuously.

On the island, the incidence rate reached 350 cases per 100,000 inhabitants and the posivitity rate "climbs to nearly 10%", he detailed, estimating that "this strong degradation is a harbinger of an epidemic runaway that we have never known until now ".

The director general of the ARS Martine Ladoucette regretted the low vaccination on the island where barely three people out of 10 are fully vaccinated against more than 5 out of 10 nationally.

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Same problem in Martinique where the vaccination campaign does not take off and where barely 15% of Martinique are fully vaccinated.

Containment will be put in place from 7:00 p.m. Friday (11:00 p.m. GMT, Saturday 1:00 a.m. in Paris) for a period of at least three weeks.

"Curbing the virus appears all the more urgent as the population of Martinique is less immune, generally older, and therefore more fragile, than that of regions where Covid-19 has circulated more and where the vaccination rate is higher", underlined the prefect Stanislas Cazelles during a press conference.

To the point that the Public Assistance-Hospitals of Paris (AP-HP) said it was "ready" to receive "very quickly" West Indian patients.

In metropolitan France, the director general of the ARS du Grand Est, Virginie Cayré, spoke of "a peak in viral circulation for 20-29 year olds" to 352 cases per 100,000 inhabitants.

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She warned that "if the virus continues to circulate in this way" in this region, she would "probably be led (...) to take other measures", in addition to the wearing of the mask made again compulsory in the places subject to health pass.

Confirming an upward trend, 91 people have been admitted to critical care in the last 24 hours, bringing to 1,015 the number of patients in critical care and 7,236 that of hospitalized people.

© 2021 AFP