New turn of the screw in sight. A health defense council is scheduled for Friday, December 17, afternoon, at the Elysee Palace, around Emmanuel Macron. An urgently scheduled meeting, Wednesday, December 15, in order to adapt the system in force and, according to the executive, “Give visibility to the French” before the end of the year holidays in the face of the resurgence of Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations.
On Wednesday noon, government spokesman Gabriel Attal announced that the executive was considering taking further measures to combat the epidemic, which has regained strength with the emergence of the new variant, Omicron, which is highly contagious. . There could be “New decisions by the end of the week (…) to take the necessary measures ”, said Mr. Attal, at the exit of the Council of Ministers, warning that the number of patients hospitalized in intensive care should reach 4,000 around the holidays.
Based on information from World, the executive does not plan to upset the strategy followed in recent weeks, which consists of acting on all possible anti-Covid-19 tools, without taking overly restrictive measures in terms of freedom of movement. In other words, neither confinement, nor curfew, nor a ban on travel for the end of the year holidays are under consideration.
Recommendations for the holidays
As Mr. Attal said on Wednesday, the government is moving towards an acceleration of the vaccination campaign, the strengthening of border controls and the establishment of recommendations for family celebrations. According to a source within the executive, a call to be massively tested before family reunification would also be likely.
On Wednesday, during a hearing before the deputies, the Minister of Health, Olivier Véran, also mentioned several avenues, among which ” accompanying measures “ for the holidays, as well as a shortening of the time to perform the booster dose, currently set at five months after the initial vaccination.
The situation across the Channel raises fears at the top of the state. Faced with an outbreak of contamination linked to the Omicron variant, the United Kingdom reported on Wednesday 78,610 positive cases recorded in twenty-four hours, a record since the start of the pandemic in 2020, according to official figures. “This does not bode well because we can imagine that we are two weeks ahead of them”, observes an executive adviser.
Given the current rapid progression of cases, the Omicron variant could become dominant among Covid-19 infections in Europe by mid-January, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen warned on Wednesday.
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