The health system is also under severe pressure in France. To avoid hospitals having to refuse patients, French President Emmanuel Macron opts for a second lockdown for his country. He announced this in a television message.
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After a meeting with the Security Council, Macron decided on Wednesday that France will go into lockdown again on the night from Thursday to Friday. The schools, crèches and nurseries will remain open. Visitors are allowed in the residential care centers. Telework becomes the general rule. Non-essential items, including the hospitality industry, must close. In addition, gatherings of persons who are not part of a family are prohibited.
Journeys are also severely limited. Anyone who wants to leave their home must be able to present a certificate. Exceptions to this are travel for professional or medical reasons, for shopping, to help someone in need, or to get some fresh air. This rule also applied during the first lockdown in March.
A ‘period of tolerance’ will be introduced before the autumn holidays, when people are allowed to move freely. The lockdown is valid until December 1, but Macron makes it clear that easing is possible. ‘We re-evaluate the figures every 15 days, and then see whether there are any easing options or whether stores can open again.’ Measures can be relaxed once the daily contamination rate is below 5,000. In France, 36,437 people have tested positive for the corona virus in the past 24 hours.
The purpose of the lockdown is to reduce the infection rates and the number of hospital admissions as quickly as possible. Macron then wants to return to testing and tracing. ‘That should help us bridge the situation until there is a vaccine, scientists say that it will be until next summer.’
‘Second wave worse than first’
In total, more than 1.2 million French have been infected with covid-19. 35,541 people did not survive infection with the virus. According to Macron, the second wave will be worse than the first. “By mid-November, all intensive care beds reserved for corona will be full,” Macron predicted. That’s why France needs a ‘big brake’, ‘so that doctors never have to make the decision to rescue a corona patient or a victim of a car accident’.
Macron realizes that this is a second major blow to the economy. ‘There is no healthcare without a running economy, but nothing is more important than a human life. We couldn’t do anything and wait for group immunity, but that means 400,000 extra deaths. ‘
“It is a difficult period, but this shows who we are, people of solidarity,” Macron concluded. “I have faith in you, we have to hold on, but we will do it, all together.”
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