Curtain at midnight.
The prefect of the North announced Friday that restaurants and drinking establishments in the city of Lille will have to close this Saturday evening and until six in the morning on Sunday.
While the coronavirus epidemic is growing in the department, the representative of the State highlights "the urgency" and the "need to limit any behavior likely to increase or promote the risk of contagion, in particular, in this period of return to student ”.
In the North, the number of new cases of Covid-19 follows a very upward trend, as shown in this graph produced from data from Public Health France.
LP / Public health France
As a result, the incidence rate, ie the number of cases reported to the population, reached 46.5 positive tests per 100,000 inhabitants from August 26 to September 1.
This is almost double the level reached a fortnight earlier.
However, the alert threshold (50), already crossed by 22 metropolitan departments, has not yet been reached in the North.
# Covid_19 the incidence rate is increasing on #Nord (46.5) and on @MEL_Lille (65) to face the situation, the prefect imposes the closure of bars and restaurants at midnight on Saturday September 5 in the city by #Lille + info: https://t.co/T5Lk0fMEIn pic.twitter.com/r1CZnqJ9SW
- Prefect of the Hauts-de-France and North region (@ prefet59) September 4, 2020
But the incidence rate is particularly high in the European metropolis of Lille, since it has "passed the bar of 65 cases per 100,000 inhabitants", indicates the prefecture.
"Population mixing"
Especially, while this weekend is held the "clearance sale of traders" (which replaces the traditional large clearance sale canceled because of the Covid-19), the authorities consider that "the mixing of populations and gatherings are conducive to rapid dissemination virus ”.
At the end of August in the Bouches-du-Rhône, the prefect had also decided to close bars and restaurants from 11 p.m., but every night of the week.
This measure is part of the arsenal available to the authorities in the departments classified as "virus circulation zone", of which the North does not (at least, not yet).
