PANDEMIC: England and Scotland announced on Monday their total confinement in the face of the surge of the coronavirus Covid-19 epidemic
“A dozen suspected or proven cases” of the British variant of the coronavirus have so far been spotted in France, the Minister of Health, Olivier Véran said on Tuesday , stressing that its likely greater transmissibility “worries” the authorities
“It is a variant that worries us and for which we are deploying very significant logistical and diagnostic resources,” he continued, questioned by RTL. “We look at it like milk on the fire”, he insisted, recalling that “all people returning to France from England must have been tested”. “There are quarantines when there are doubts,” he said.
More contagious and therefore more at risk of saturating hospitals
England and Scotland announced on Monday their total confinement in the face of the surge in the Covid-19 epidemic, attributed to the new variant of the virus circulating in the United Kingdom. Northern Ireland and Wales had already instituted their third lockdown just after Christmas.
“It is clear that we must do more” to “take control” of this more contagious variant, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Monday. Detected in November in the UK, the B.1.1.7 variant, now called VOC 202012/01, quickly spread across the UK and was then detected in dozens of countries around the world.
According to initial data, it is significantly more contagious than the conventional virus. While it does not appear to be inherently more dangerous, the fact that it is more transmissible increases the risk of hospital saturation by Covid-19 patients. In France, a first case was confirmed on December 25th, in Tours, on a Frenchman who had arrived from London a few days earlier. A second case was detected in Corsica on a person returning from London, the Corsican Regional Health Agency said on Monday.
