France mulls additional restrictions

Paris, Jan 29 : The French government is considering introducing stricter coronavirus restrictions in the coming days to stem an alarming rise in confirmed cases of the new Covid-19 variants, Health Minister Olivier Veran said.
At a press briefing here on Thursday, Veran noted that the sanitary situation was deteriorating as “the virus variants are actively circulating in France” despite the government’s efforts to contain the spreading, reports Xinhua news agency.
“The fact that the variants are still spreading suggests that the curfew and all the measures are certainly useful but probably insufficient,” he said.
On January 16, a night-time ban on people’s movement, in force since December 2020, was brought forward by two hours to 6 p.m. across France in an effort to reduce social mixing and halt a surge in Covid-19 infections.
But “the virus is spreading faster”, with daily infections increasing by 10 per cent per week and reaching an average of 20,000 compared with 18,000 last month, according to the Minister.
He added that 2,000 cases of the new virus variants were detected per day, up from 500 earlier this month, increasing pressure on hospitals, where about 60 per cent of the intensive care beds have been occupied by coronavirus patients.