France considers local lockdowns as Covid-19 numbers soar
France’s Covid-19 tallies continue to spike with 96 new deaths recorded over the past 24 hours, as the government mulled whether to impose local lockdowns in hotspots like Paris.
The French government's Defence Council will meet on Tuesday to discuss possible new measures to curb the rapid spread of the virus, which has caused a mounting pressure on hospitals in big cities.
"We must take extremely draconian measures in terms of restraining society," virologist Xavier Lescure told BFMTV on Monday, echoing a call for stricter rules that has become more common among health professionals in France lately.
French public health agency Santé Public France on Monday reported 96 new hospital fatalities caused by Covid-19, a grim record of the post-lockdown period that beat the previous record of 81 deaths on September 28th. (A spike on September 18th of 124 deaths included numbers from July).
Usually the death tally in France spikes on Mondays due to a weekend-lag in reporting deaths in hospitals, however this week’s number was higher than previous Mondays and followed a trend of rising death and hospital rates over the past weeks.
France’s hospitals counted 976 new admissions on Monday, which was more than the past seven day’s average of 764 patients per day.
Intensive care units admitted 171 new patients, more than the past seven-day average of 133. That meant the total number of intensive care patients had reached 1,539, a number unseen since May 27th, but still relatively low compared to the height of the pandemic in the end of April when hospitals counted over 7,000 intensive care patients.
The situation is especially bad in Paris, where intensive care units are rapidly filling up with Covid patients. Hospitals in the greater Paris region Île-de-France could reach a 70-90 percent of their total capacity by the end of the month, director of the AP-HP hospital group in the Ile-de-France, Martin Hirsch, told French media.
President Emmanuel Macron will be speaking live to the nation on Wednesday evening, just days after Prime Minister Jean Castex said local lockdowns "cannot be ruled out" if the situation does not improve in the country’s hospitals.
READ ALSO 'No more slackening' warns French PM as two more cities move to maximum Covid-19 alert
Pointing to the nine cities currently on "maximum alert" for Covid-19, Castex said the government was considered even stricter measures if the ones currently in place did not yield positive results in the fortnight for which these measures had been set in place.
“If in this period of 15 days we see that the situation deteriorates a lot, that the intensive care beds fill up even more than what was foreseen, we could take supplementary measures,” Castex said.
Jean-François Mattei, president of the Academie nationale de médicine, told French media: "We still have the possibility of avoiding total lockdown but we will go towards partial lockdown which could be geographically located or we could go towards a curfew, for example from 8pm to 5am."
?️ Covid-19 : "Pour faire face à cette 2e vague, il ne peut plus y avoir de relâchement", martèle Jean Castex alors que 9 métropoles sont en alerte maximale. "Rien ne doit être exclu" mais un confinement généralisé "doit être évité"
Suivez le direct ?https://t.co/RJtz1zO9Xc pic.twitter.com/XRZ4oOyER0
— franceinfo (@franceinfo) October 12, 2020
EXPLAINED How France's Covid-19 alert system works
In the Bouches-du-Rhône département, home to Marseille and one of the areas currently on "maximum alert", local authorities asked for more resources to help police the city's bars and restaurants, after initial checks showed many were not correctly complying with the new, strict health rules in place.
France also reported 8,505 new Covid-19 cases and 55 additional clusters on Monday, bringing the total number of clusters under investigation up to 1,496.
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The French government's Defence Council will meet on Tuesday to discuss possible new measures to curb the rapid spread of the virus, which has caused a mounting pressure on hospitals in big cities.
"We must take extremely draconian measures in terms of restraining society," virologist Xavier Lescure told BFMTV on Monday, echoing a call for stricter rules that has become more common among health professionals in France lately.
French public health agency Santé Public France on Monday reported 96 new hospital fatalities caused by Covid-19, a grim record of the post-lockdown period that beat the previous record of 81 deaths on September 28th. (A spike on September 18th of 124 deaths included numbers from July).
Usually the death tally in France spikes on Mondays due to a weekend-lag in reporting deaths in hospitals, however this week’s number was higher than previous Mondays and followed a trend of rising death and hospital rates over the past weeks.
France’s hospitals counted 976 new admissions on Monday, which was more than the past seven day’s average of 764 patients per day.
Intensive care units admitted 171 new patients, more than the past seven-day average of 133. That meant the total number of intensive care patients had reached 1,539, a number unseen since May 27th, but still relatively low compared to the height of the pandemic in the end of April when hospitals counted over 7,000 intensive care patients.
The situation is especially bad in Paris, where intensive care units are rapidly filling up with Covid patients. Hospitals in the greater Paris region Île-de-France could reach a 70-90 percent of their total capacity by the end of the month, director of the AP-HP hospital group in the Ile-de-France, Martin Hirsch, told French media.
President Emmanuel Macron will be speaking live to the nation on Wednesday evening, just days after Prime Minister Jean Castex said local lockdowns "cannot be ruled out" if the situation does not improve in the country’s hospitals.
READ ALSO 'No more slackening' warns French PM as two more cities move to maximum Covid-19 alert
Pointing to the nine cities currently on "maximum alert" for Covid-19, Castex said the government was considered even stricter measures if the ones currently in place did not yield positive results in the fortnight for which these measures had been set in place.
“If in this period of 15 days we see that the situation deteriorates a lot, that the intensive care beds fill up even more than what was foreseen, we could take supplementary measures,” Castex said.
Jean-François Mattei, president of the Academie nationale de médicine, told French media: "We still have the possibility of avoiding total lockdown but we will go towards partial lockdown which could be geographically located or we could go towards a curfew, for example from 8pm to 5am."
?️ Covid-19 : "Pour faire face à cette 2e vague, il ne peut plus y avoir de relâchement", martèle Jean Castex alors que 9 métropoles sont en alerte maximale. "Rien ne doit être exclu" mais un confinement généralisé "doit être évité"
— franceinfo (@franceinfo) October 12, 2020
Suivez le direct ?https://t.co/RJtz1zO9Xc pic.twitter.com/XRZ4oOyER0
EXPLAINED How France's Covid-19 alert system works
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