PARIS | Legally extended health passport, vaccination with revenge, reminder of prohibition gestures: During the summer holidays, France seeks to slow the outbreak of COVID-19 cases due to delta variation and, above all, avoid touching the hospital to avoid it.
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Jean-Franசois Delphires, chairman of the Science Council, which guides the government, says it is “urgent” to accept such measures. “There is no going back to normal now, 2022 (or) may be 2023,” he told PFM TV on Friday.
About 4,500 on July 9, 10,900 on July 16, and now 22,000: the number of daily cases doubles due to the delta variation. “We will come to 50,000 cases by the beginning of August,” Professor Delphriesi warned.
The French Public Health Agency (SPF) warned in its weekly report that the “increase in cases” for the first time in 15 weeks was accompanied by a “net increase in hospitalization rates (+ 55%) and the number of patients admitted to complex care services (+ 35%)”.
Latidia Howard, SPF, explained during a press conference that in order to prevent the delta variant, which first appeared in India and became “highly contagious”, it is necessary to “strongly encourage vaccination to avoid a sharp increase in hospitalized patients and to avoid hospital tensions”.
The elderly (especially those over the age of 80) or the vulnerable who have not yet been vaccinated (according to health insurance, more than 5 million people are at risk) have been discredited by SPF experts.
Prime Minister Jean Costex on July 12 called for the use of a defined strategy “with maximum speed and efficiency”, including “increasing the vaccination campaign and the use of a health passport”.
The controversial extension of this passport (vaccine or negative test) will soon be required in bars, restaurants and major shopping centers, as well as the vaccine duty for caretakers who voted against by 117 votes and 86, the result of a sleepless night of intense debate in the National Assembly.
New Passport Protest
The bill is now in the Senate and is expected by the government by the end of the adoption weekend.
Passports provoke opposition from a section of the population in the name of respect for individual liberties: according to official figures, rallies on July 17 rallied more than 110,000 people across France, and a new demonstration is scheduled for Saturday in Paris.
Many unions have denounced it as an “attack on freedom of work,” a provision that could go so far as to dismiss employees and public officials who refuse to submit a health passport.
Mandatory from Wednesday in cultural and leisure time, the document will be extended to bars and restaurants, transport (airplanes, trains, long-distance trainers) and all healthcare facilities from early August. August to their staff.
Meanwhile, its extension announcement has given a boost to the vaccine: out of a total population of 67 million, 58% have now received at least one dose, and 48% have been vaccinated.
But vaccination does not do everything: “Against the backdrop of so much widespread pollution, we must return to simple prohibition measures,” Professor Delphries insisted, “in a crowded situation” and advised the mask to vaccinate in the worst places. Ventilation. According to him, this would “get 20% off hospitalization”.
In all, 111,587 people have officially died of COVID in France since the outbreak began.
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