First modification:
For three weeks, France has experienced a rebound in new infections of Covid-19 due to the advance of the Omicron variant. For this Monday, December 26, the authorities are expected to announce new measures to contain the pandemic.
The Omicron Christmas. France registered 104,611 new cases of Covid-19 in 24 hours. On Christmas Day, it breaks the records since the beginning of the pandemic and this Monday, December 26, the French Government will reevaluate the situation.
The French health authorities also reported the death of 84 people in the last 24 hours, for a total record of 122,500 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic. In the last three weeks, cases have skyrocketed, while on Wednesday, December 22, the Minister of Health, Olivier Véran, had already warned that the threshold of 100,000 infections would be exceeded in the following days.
One of the biggest concerns centers on the intensive care units, which serve 3,282 patients, with 160 new admissions compared to Friday, December 24, although it is still far from the April 2020 peak of 7,000 people admitted.
The weekly incidence rate stood at 597 cases per 100,000 inhabitants and the threat of the new Omicron variant already gives bad projections for 2022. “The realistic scenario is that in mid-January we will have 200,000 daily infections,” said the infectious disease specialist Benjamin Davido at CNews.
The French Government opened vaccination for children between 5 and 11 years old, although the percentage reduced the daily rate for the Christmas holidays. Since that day, some 20,966 injections have been administered, most of them reinforcement, according to data from the Ministry of Health.
In France, some 22 million people have all three doses, a third of the country’s total population.
This Monday, December 26, President Emmanuel Macron will hold the Health Defense Council by video call at 4:00 p.m., and will be dedicated to the issue of Covid-19. The meeting takes place an hour before the Council of Ministers dedicates on the bill of the sanitary pass, which will require the vaccine, and which is scheduled to take effect on January 15, according to the AFP agency.
The project would transform the health card into a vaccination card “for access to leisure activities, restaurants and drinking establishments, fairs, seminars and professional salons or interregional transport”, in particular rail transport.
Although a negative Covid-19 test will suffice “for access to health and medical-social establishments and services.”
[#COVID19] The virus peut également is transmitted via the air, from microgouttelettes which are invisible to the whole.
➡️ Pour them faire disparaître and limit the circulation of the virus, in addition to all the gestes barrières, it is essential for the air to regulate the pièces. pic.twitter.com/JoPusxpkh0– SantépubliqueFrance (@SantePubliqueFr) December 14, 2021
Gabriel Attal, spokesman for the Government, assured that on Monday a “Reassessment” of the country’s health situation is also contemplated, at a time when the variant is spreading “very rapidly” in France and should be a “majority” in the next days.
Europe faces a wave of new infections and in some countries some restrictions have already been issued.
With EFE and Reuters
.