Brussels 14.10.2020 Tonight the speech of President Macron is awaited in many EU capitals: will he apply method of curfew as a tool of defeating COVID-19 pandemic also in the Hexagone? Neighbouring Belgium has already imposed this drastic measure from 14 October in some provinces.
Several French media evoked the possibility of curfews in the most affected territories of the V-th Republic, the strategy promoted by the president of the National Academy of Medicine, the former Minister of Health Jean-François Mattéi.
The curfew option is also being considered by the Covid-19 Scientific Council in an alert note dated September 22. The body chaired by Jean-François Delfraissy recalls that a curfew has notably been introduced in Guyana, where Jean Castex went shortly after his appointment to Matignon.
At this stage of the epidemic, the Scientific Council does not envisage proposing the option (of a curfew) at the national level, but cannot exclude its use in certain metropolitan areas and of course in the event of deterioration. later ”, the text of this note reads, which mentions curfews for a period of a fortnight.
On Monday, October 12, referring to a “very difficult” situation facing the “reality of a second epidemic wave”, the Prime Minister, Jean Castex, did not rule out the new period of re-confinement in the country where the health crisis will last according to him several more months. (However the World Bank in its documents mentions 15 month of the second wave).
“General re-confinement must be avoided by all means,” the head of government told France Info, referring to the “absolutely dramatic” consequences of such a drastic measure. “Nothing should be excluded when we see the situation in our hospitals,” he replied when asked about possible local.
The Scientific Council warns that the population’s support for such a measure would be “probably weak, with detrimental effects in terms of social cohesion and confidence” and indicates that its economic cost would be “all the greater as it occurs. after a first period of confinement and that it feeds negative economic expectations with potentially disastrous effects ”.
As in other European countries, France is facing a marked deterioration in health indicators this autumn. The threshold of 1,500 patients treated in intensive care for a Covid-19 infection was crossed again on Monday for the first time since May 27.
One of the leading world experts in virology Professor Didier Raoult initially regretted “the global state of nervous crisis in which the country is dived”, while invited by CNews to comment on certain measures taken by political authorities in regions of France to slow the spread of Covid-19.
“It is beyond reason and understanding,” he proclaims. “This leads to adopting strategies that put more health at risk.”
Anna Van Densky blog 