The French President Emmanuel Macron is to address his nation at 8pm this evening and it has been reported that France is on the verge of a second full national lockdown.
France along with the rest of Europe have been hit with a second wave of the virus and on Tuesday the World Health Organization (WHO) urged governments to act now.
The executive director of the WHO health emergencies programme, Dr Michael Ryan said that governments “take some serious acceleration” with “much more” stricter measures to combat the virus.
France now has soaring cases of infections and are now reporting more than 350 new cases per 100,000 population each week, with 18% of tests coming back as positive.
France now has the third highest death toll in Europe, with over 35,000 lives lost, and the country reported 523 deaths in 24-hours, the highest since April.
Emergency services and hospitals are under immense pressure and intensive care wards with Covid patients now take up 54% of beds across the country.
French government spokesperson Gabriel Attal said, “Nobody disagrees with our objective, which is to absolutely prevent our hospitals being in a situation where they can’t admit new patients.”
Top Ministers and business leaders have been holding emergency meetings with the French Prime Minister Jean Castex, as hospitals are nearing capacity, and we are only in the autumn and winter is yet to hit, which it is feared many thousands of cases will rise each day.
Government sources have suggested that some of the new measures could include lengthening curfew, full confinement during weekends, or even all week with all non-essential businesses to close, or a full national lockdown.
Leave a Comment