France may postpone deconfinement if new cases rise
France’s deconfinement start date of May 11 could be postponed if too many people become infected by the virus before then, the health minister has warned, calling the situation “a long-distance race”.
In an interview with newspaper Le Parisien/Aujourd'hui en France today (Sunday May 3), health minister Olivier Véran said: “If confinement is properly respected until the end, the lid will have been put on the epidemic, and we will be able to gradually ‘deconfine’ in the best possible conditions.
“On the other hand, if the number of new cases is too high, the date of confinement lifting could be questioned, and may be extended across different departments.”
He added: “We are going to have to live with this awful virus. This is a long-distance race.”
In his deconfinement announcement on Tuesday (April 28) Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said that the Assemblée Nationale had set the “acceptable” threshold of new cases at 3,000 per day, before confinement could be safely lifted.
The day before (Monday April 27), the health director general had announced 3,764 new cases for the previous 24 hours.
Since then, the average number of new cases per day has dropped significantly. In the latest update (Saturday May 2), the number was at 794.
Mr Philippe has laid out a plan of gradual deconfinement from May 11 onwards, stretching over the summer to September and beyond.
Alongside this, certain precautionary measures will continue to be imposed, including the recommendation to continue social distancing, and for people to wear a mask in public, and on all forms of public transport.
In the same interview today, Mr Véran gave an update on the mask situation.
For health professionals, the aim is to distribute 100 million masks per week from May 11, to allow them to continue to work “as normally as possible”.
He said: “Until now, we have been giving 45 million masks to health professionals per week. Some professionals, who cannot work without them - such as dentists - will have FFP2 [the highest protection] masks. Doctors, pharmacists and nurses will have three to four surgical or FFP2 masks per day.
“Other professionals - opticians, osteopaths, and therapists - will also have masks. As a result of all the orders we have made over the past few weeks, we have been able to build up a stock of 155 million masks.”
For members of the public, the government has also recently announced plans to help ensure as many people as possible have access to a mask.
Masks are now permitted to be sold in pharmacies and supermarkets, starting at €2 each.
The government has also said it plans to distribute washable, fabric face masks across the country from May 4 (tomorrow), with several avenues explored on how to ensure vulnerable and low-income people also have access to them.
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