Will a third confinement be on the program? This is what the French have feared for many weeks. After a period of lull during which Covid-19 contaminations remained stable, between 15,000 and 20,000 cases per day, the virus "in fact gaining ground for a week", announced Jean Castex on Thursday February 25, 2021 during his eagerly awaited press briefing. 30,000 positive cases were in fact recorded on Wednesday February 24, 2021. In response to this worrying progression of the epidemic which is also affecting the rest of Europe, local authorities have decided to confine the city of Nice, where the incidence rate was very high, during the weekends. The Prime Minister also indicated that around 20 departments had just been placed in "enhanced vigilance" : "All of Île-de-France, a large part of Hauts-de-France and Provence Alpes-Côte-d'Azur, but also the departments of Rhône and Drôme, Moselle and Meurthe-et -Moselle, and finally Eure-et-Loire ".
2.5 million doses of vaccines have been administered, but neither this campaign, which began in December 2020, nor the early 6pm curfew has yet borne fruit. However, the government wishes "do everything to delay confinement", as Jean Castex explained. A sentence that went unnoticed, but which says a lot about the executive’s intentions. "I hear some calls for hard and immediate containment to get rid of the virus within four weeks. Unfortunately, it is nowhere near that simple," insisted on explaining the 55-year-old politician.
An inevitable third confinement?
"Containment is a lever to which we must resort when we cannot do otherwise", he stressed before explaining: "Our goal remains the same: to maintain and preserve our hospitals, our way of life and the education of our children. It is the backbone of our action." The Prime Minister also spoke with hope the upcoming arrival of "new treatments", monoclonal antibodies that "could help prevent the onset of severe forms of the disease". A new weapon against the coronavirus and its English variant.
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