Many public places will be closed during the first weekend of containment, while the Coronavirus Covid-19 has already killed 450 people in France.
First spring weekend under tension: the French authorities are determined on Saturday 21st March 2020 to enforce the confinement imposed to curb the coronavirus epidemic which has already killed 450 people in the country, deeming it insufficiently respected.
Tighter restrictions
The restrictions decreed to stem the spread of the new coronavirus will be applied “even more strictly”, warned the Minister of the Interior Christophe Castaner, with controls in the stations (only 15% of the main lines will circulate) and the airports. Fixed fines of 135 euros will be drawn up in the event of “violation of the prohibitions on moving outside one’s home”.
La mise en oeuvre de la restriction des déplacements va être appliquée de manière plus stricte encore :
✅ contrôles renforcés dans les gares et aéroports
✅ aucun rassemblement ne sera toléré dans les espaces publics. Tout contrevenant sera sanctionné. pic.twitter.com/xz7MqQx6wP— Christophe Castaner (@CCastaner) March 20, 2020
Persons already fined for unjustified exits were thus placed in police custody for “endangering the life of others”.
The Sentinel operation to fight terrorism will “ramp up” as part of the fight against the coronavirus, Castaner also said on Friday.
Iconic location closings
It is out of the question to review the scenes of the previous weekend, with the crowds in the pedestrian streets, parks, forests. Already, the closings of emblematic places have multiplied, from the quays of the Seine in Paris to the Promenade des Anglais in Nice, where a curfew will be imposed in the very next days, according to the entourage of the mayor.
“Do not go on weekends,” insisted Friday the Director-General of Health, Jérôme Salomon. While the epidemic weighs heavily on health services, “you may unknowingly transport the virus from large cities to the countryside” or arrive “in an area where there is not necessarily health infrastructure able to take care of a lot of patients ”.
On peut continuer à se contaminer, malgré le confinement, si l’on ne respecte pas :
🧼 Les gestes barrières
🙅♀La réduction du nombre de contacts
👥 La distance entre les personnes (1 mètre, partout, toute la journée)👉 https://t.co/0I8koxOdgq pic.twitter.com/FEbz9Fd3JT
— Ministère des Solidarités et de la Santé (@MinSoliSante) March 20, 2020
Towards an extension of containment
The extension of the confinement, decreed until the end of March, “has not been acted on”, according to Christophe Castaner. But everything suggests that it will be sooner or later, as in Italy, which records the most deaths in the world (more than 4000, ahead of China).
The confinement may cease “when the virus no longer circulates,” said Olivier Véran, the Minister of Health, estimating the number of patients in France at 20,000. The majority of them are not tested, therefore not detected
Info #coronavirus
⚠️ Les gants sont contaminés par chaque produit touché !
👉La meilleure protection : se laver les mains très régulièrement ! pic.twitter.com/4tK7qhhyrC— Préfet du Tarn (@prefet81) March 20, 2020
The epidemic had caused the death of 450 patients on Friday (78 additional in 24 hours) and led to the hospitalization of 5226 patients, including nearly 1300 in intensive care, according to the Ministry of Health. Nearly 1,600 patients left hospitals, cured.
“Half of the intensive care patients are under 60 years old,” said Jérôme Salomon, who warned, echoing the World Health Organization, that the epidemic also affects “young adults”.
“We are waiting for the wave”
The Nouvelle-Aquitaine region becomes the seventh most affected region – after Grand Est, Corsica, Île-de-France, Hauts-de-France, Bourgogne-Franche-Comté and Auvergne-Rhône Alpes.
“Faced with the urgency and the scale of the epidemic”, particularly in Île-de-France, the Paris hospitals (AP-HP) are making an urgent appeal to “medical and paramedical professionals available in the coming weeks to strengthen the teams of its 39 hospitals. ”
“We are waiting for the wave of serious patients in the hope that it will not be a tsunami,” wrote Dr Laurent Thines, a neurologist at the Besançon University Hospital in Mediapart.
« Anosmie »
In addition to the imminent establishment of a military hospital near Mulhouse (Haut-Rhin), the French navy will evacuate patients from Corsica this weekend to the mainland.
Professor Salomon for his part spoke of “a resurgence of cases of anosmia”, reported by ENT specialists in connection with the virus. It is a “sudden disappearance of smell without nasal obstruction and which can occur in isolation”, which requires calling your doctor to avoid self-medication.
#Coronavirus | Recommandations sanitaires
✅Comment se transmet le #COVID19 ?
✖Comment se protéger et protéger les autres ?
🔎Quels sont les signes ?Un doute face à une information ?
↪ Nous diffusons des informations sur : https://t.co/lMMn8iogJB pic.twitter.com/mBH4VzUvFU— Ministère des Solidarités et de la Santé (@MinSoliSante) March 20, 2020
On the sensitive subject of masks, allocated in priority to caregivers but which many professions in contact with the public claim, the government has recognized “logistical difficulties”. A group of personalities, including epidemiologist Catherine Hill, calls on the government to “organize the production of masks” and to “test and isolate the contaminated people”.
Towards a state of health emergency
The Parliament definitively adopted the financial part of the emergency measures against the coronavirus on Friday, but the debates dragged on in the Assembly on the other text allowing the establishment of a state of health emergency, postponing its adoption until the weekend. end.
#COVID19 | Le projet de loi de finances rectificative pour 2020 est adopté à l’unanimité,
➡️ Dispositif de chômage partiel et du fonds de solidarité en faveur des entreprises pour 6,25 Mds€
➡️ Garantie bancaire au profit des entreprises à hauteur de 300 Mds€#DirectAN pic.twitter.com/Z6QHI4fuyu— Assemblée nationale (@AssembleeNat) March 19, 2020
Combined with the emergency bill passed at first reading in the Senate and which will be examined on Saturday by the National Assembly, the text provides 45 billion euros to help businesses in difficulty and to finance partial unemployment of employees.
The Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire called on companies to pay a tax-free bonus to their employees, especially those who “had the courage to go to their place of work” in essential sectors.
“Aperitif at the windows”
France is also working to organize the return of approximately 130,000 nationals stranded abroad, generally for holidays.
After the now traditional applause that resounds at 8 p.m. all over France to thank the nursing staff, French people organized an aperitif at their windows to “fight the routine” of isolation.
👏 Les habitants du centre-ville de #Caen (#Calvados) à leurs fenêtres pour applaudir le personnel soignant qui lutte contre l’épidémie de #coronavirus 👏 #Normandie #CoronavirusFrance #COVID19fr #20honapplaudit pic.twitter.com/6iN6o9HoIS
— Côté Caen (@cotecaen) March 19, 2020
#OnApplaudit encore et toujours les #soignants dans mon quartier à #Lille ! 👏
Toujours plus de bruit pour eux ! pic.twitter.com/o5lrG1nIJd— Julien Bouteiller (@j_bouteiller) March 20, 2020
Plus les jours passent et plus il y a d'applaudissements en #SeineSaintDenis #OnApplaudit https://t.co/5WGmR53j1v
— Actu 93 (@Actufr93) March 20, 2020
