The number of confirmed cases per day exceeds 15,000. The government promises to speed up vaccination.
France’s coronavirus epidemic has rebounded seriously in recent days.
According to the data released by the French Ministry of Health on January 8th local time, as of 14:00 on the same day, there were 2,747,135 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in France, with 19,184 new cases in the past 24 hours, 67,431 deaths and 590 new cases.
In the first week of 2021, there were 15,052 confirmed cases of COVID-19 every day.
On the evening of the 7th local time, French Prime Minister Jean Casté announced a new round of epidemic prevention and control measures at a press conference: the national “curfew” originally scheduled to end on the 7th was extended to January 20, and 10 new provinces were imposed curfew, and the curfew began from 20:00 to 18:00; museums, cinemas and theaters , gymnasium and other entertainment venues will remain closed until the end of the month; restaurants and bars remain closed until mid-February.
In addition, Prime Minister Jean Casté also promised that France would simplify and accelerate the vaccination process for the novel coronavirus. By next Monday, the number of vaccination centers in France will increase from the current 100 to 300, and reach 600 by the end of the month.
After medical staff and domestic workers over 50 years old are given priority, people over 75 years old can also be vaccinated against the novel coronavirus from January 18.
French health minister Olivier Verran said that he was striving to “complete vaccinations for 1 million people by the end of this month”.
Vaccination is far behind.
Since the launch of COVID-19 vaccination on December 27, 2020, vaccinations in France have progressed relatively slowly compared with other European countries. According to the data of the French Ministry of Health, as of January 1 this year, only 516 people had been vaccinated.
At the same time, more than 200,000 people in Germany have been vaccinated against the novel coronavirus.
As of the 8th, France’s per capita vaccination rate for COVID-19 was 0.07%, far behind that of the United Kingdom (1.91%), Denmark (1.43%), Italy (0.68%) and Germany (0.5%).
According to the famous French current affairs weekly newspaper Sunday, French President Macron recently angrily denounced the “family outing and walking” vaccination rhythm in a conference call, saying that it “is not only contrary to the needs of the current situation nor meets the expectations of the French”.
I have been fighting from morning till night, and I hope that everyone can equally participate in the fight against the epidemic. But the situation is not satisfactory at present… This must change as soon as possible!
However, in terms of vaccination, the French government still needs to face a difficult problem: the nationals generally have strong doubts about vaccines.
According to a survey released by polling agency Ipsos on December 29, only 40% of French people expressed their willingness to get a coronavirus vaccine, which is far lower than that of the United Kingdom (77%), the United States (69%), Germany (65%) and Italy (62%).
In view of the current grim situation of the epidemic, French Minister of Health Olivier Veran recently revealed that “it is not ruled out launching a third blockade if the epidemic worsens”.
The French government will reassess the situation of the epidemic on January 20 and make a next decision.
