PARIS. The first mass screenings – with free anti-Covid-19 swabs for all – in two French cities, Le Havre and Charleville-Mezieres, started this morning. In the Normandy port the goal is to test 270,000 inhabitants in 5 days. Roubaix and Saint-Etienne will follow.
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Operations in Le Havre began in the presence of the Minister of Health, Olivier Véran, and the mayor, former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe. Véran had presented the mass screenings last week as a new attempt to bring the epidemic under control by the end of the year holidays and reopening after the lockdown, scheduled for tomorrow. The French will be able to circulate again without self-certification from tomorrow throughout the territory, even if the number of daily cases of contagion remains far from the objectives dictated by the government (5,000 per day).
Yesterday there were still 11,533 registered, with 150 deaths in 24 hours. “These operations – explained Véran, illustrating the mass screening in various cities – are both a means of limiting the spread of the virus in the communities involved, and a way of experimenting with our strategy” test, alert, protect “”.
Philippe, launching the operations in his city, stressed that the swabs will be carried out to all “without an appointment and for free, with a result within half an hour”. «In Liverpool – he continued – they managed to test about a third of the 500,000 inhabitants in 4 days. If we tested 50% of the population, I would be the happiest of men! But we will undoubtedly be below ».
In the Ardennes region, the screening will cover the two main cities with their banlieue: Charleville-Mezieres and Sedan, with a total of 123,000 inhabitants, until Friday, then from 21 to 23 December and from 28 to 30. The same operation will be launched in two of the territories most affected by the second wave, Roubaix, in the north, and Saint-Etienne, in the center.
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