Louis de Raguenel
The Omicron variant continues to spread around the world and in France. In an attempt to slow the progression of the epidemic, the government does not rule out going “beyond” the restrictive measures in force. Several options are indeed on the table at the dawn of the end of the year holidays, and in particular for the New Year.
The government does not rule out going “beyond” the restrictive measures in force in the event of “a very strong resumption of the epidemic linked to the Omicron variant”, underlined this Tuesday the spokesman of the government, Gabriel Attal . The executive wants to accelerate in the face of the epidemic which is growing globally and also in France. For this, several options are on the table.
Avoid curfews or confinement at all costs
The government is now quite worried. This is why the bill to transform the health pass into a vaccine pass, which was to be studied in the Council of Ministers on January 5, will be studied next week, on December 27, to be then debated at the National Assembly on January 3.
The objective is to avoid curfew and containment measures at all costs. There should therefore be no such announcements for the Christmas holidays. Then the government moves forward. For the moment, in two stages: on Christmas, first, and on the New Year afterwards. New measures for December 31st will indeed be announced by then.
To decide, the executive fixes itself on two parameters, namely the number of contaminations which explode – even if the French test themselves more – and also on the hospital pressure. Monday, the 3,000 hospitalizations in intensive care were exceeded. If at this stage the hospital is not saturated, the number of beds has not increased since the start of the pandemic. And this is what particularly worries the executive.