Restaurants, cinemas, concerts … The coronavirus pandemic is depriving us of our favorite pastimes. If we already know when certain activities will resume, for others, it is a blur. We take stock.
It's been almost a year now that our freedoms have taken a little hit … The covid-19 pandemic has greatly reduced gatherings, with a first confinement in March 2020, then a second in the fall of 2020 so that, finally, the whole of France is under curfew. In terms of entertainment and outings, the pleasures are clearly reduced. The question therefore arises, as it begins to take a long time: when will we return to normal life? Some estimates are made, but a lot of information remains unclear. The government takes the subject with a grain of salt and is reluctant to give exact dates, especially by remaining on the alert as to the evolution of the pandemic.
Curfew and containment: where are we?
On the curfew side, the government had initially set an end on January 20, 2021. But given the health situation, the whole of France is still subject to a curfew from 6 p.m. Neither President Emmanuel Macron nor Jean Castex has announced a new probable date for lifting the curfew. Regarding a possible reconfinement, the mystery remains unsolved. In fact, on the side of scientists, the majority consider that it is urgent to reconfine the country. For example, Professor Philippe Juvin, head of emergencies at the Georges-Pompidou hospital in Paris and LR mayor of La Garenne-Colombes (Hauts-de-Seine), insisted on the need to quickly confine again, on Tuesday 26 January 2021 on LCI. "The sooner we confine, the shorter the confinement will be and this confinement, which will be difficult to be accepted by the French, must now be part of a strategy to eradicate the epidemic", he argues. However, the government does not agree and has shared its few reservations about a future lockdown. On the same January 26, the Minister for Industry Agnès Pannier-Runacher told BFMTV : "To my knowledge and on the basis of the data we have, at this point there is no reason to decide on containment." For now, the state of health emergency has been extended until June 1, 2021.
Cultural venues and restaurants: when will they reopen?
Regarding cinemas, concerts and restaurants, the mystery also remains unsolved. On December 15, 2020, everyone was hoping, for example, that the cinemas would reopen. Movie theater distributors were absolutely amazed when the government announced that movie theaters will not reopen. Since then, no date has been announced for these cultural venues and the same is true for concert halls. Moreover, some festivals, such as Solidays, have already been canceled, unable to afford to invest, once again, in an event that may not take place.
On the side of the Ministry of Culture, everything is blurry, with still a little glimmer of hope for live music. But Roselyn Bachelot does not wish to communicate a date. At the beginning of February 2021, the Minister of Culture was invited to the set of BFMTV and explained: "It can be pretty quick, but I'm not giving a date." Ditto for restaurants. Moreover, the government has already expressed its desire not to communicate a date for the reopening of these places: "I can hardly see us locking ourselves back into a date system which would inevitably create disappointment if it could not be held. A reopening depending on the real evolution of the pandemic would consist in authorizing the resumption of activities as soon as the virus circulation, for example, will drop below a certain threshold. " In addition, Roselyne Bachelot, announced Monday February 15, 2021 on LCI of "experiments" in March and April, during concerts organized in Marseille and Paris.
Towards an acceleration of vaccination
While vaccination against the coronavirus is not mandatory, the government wants to speed up the campaign. In March, the over 65s should be affected, then move on to the over 50s in April. The goal: for the vaccine to be accessible to all French people by the summer of 2021. However, it is difficult to see the end of the pandemic in France. Indeed, the variants, particularly Brazilian and South African, raise various questions. Are they resistant to the vaccine? February 15, 2021, The world published the column of a collective of doctors. For them, it is very clear: "The hope of achieving herd immunity at the end of the summer in Europe is fading. Vaccination deployment is delayed and the emergence of new variants threatens the effectiveness of existing vaccines Moreover, history has proven to us that vaccination cannot, by itself, eliminate a virus. A global release of Covid-19 in 2021 therefore seems highly unlikely. " So we're going to have to grit our teeth for a while longer.