"We will benefit a lot less and for Martinique tourism, it will have an impact."
In the middle of a park in Fort-de-France, Christelle, a tourist, does not hide her disappointment.
She who had come to enjoy the Caribbean island, finds herself confined for the rest of her vacation: "We were asked to get vaccinated to come here and in the end we are confined again".
On the verge of taking her plane, Marion, she decided not to cancel her family vacation on the island: "We prefer to spend two weeks in the sun rather than two weeks in the Paris region".
Confinement or not, for her, there is no longer any question of letting the Covid intervene in her vacation plans.
Like the 400,000 inhabitants of Martinique, Christelle and Marion, will have to enjoy the beauty of the iguana island… From their homes.
The prefect of Martinique, Stanislas Cazelles, announced Wednesday a new confinement of the island from this Friday 7 p.m. and for a period of at least three weeks.
A measure to which must be added an extension of the curfew already in force from 7 p.m. to 5 a.m.
"We are worried, the health situation is worsening and the Covid-19 figures are exploding", assured at a press conference the prefect and Olivier Coudin, the deputy director of the Regional Health Agency (ARS) .
"Inescapable, given the increase in cases"
This increase in cases is reflected in hospitals on the island, which have reached a level of saturation. “We felt that confinement was inevitable, given the influx of patients in the emergency room,” explains François Roques, president of the Medical Establishment Commission of the Martinique CHU, which opened nine Covid services in a fortnight. But the doctor wants to be reassuring about the duration of this confinement: "We are on an island and the confinement measures are quickly effective".
In the meantime, it's containment, and if non-essential businesses are allowed to open, restaurants are asked to close.
"Each time, it is the restaurants that pay", reacts Marie Dominique Moundras, owner of the restaurant Chez Geneviève in Fort-de-France.
"It leaves a little bitter taste."
The advanced curfew at 7 p.m. is also forcing bars to come into line.
"We are shot," confided the managers of Cotton Bay, a lounge bar in the capital of Martinique.
"The two summer months are the most important for our turnover, and with the previous confinements, we have already lost 40% of our customers".
Read also Covid-19 in Martinique: three patients soon transferred to Paris, army reinforcements on the spot
At the prefecture of Fort-de-France, the prefect Stanislas Cazelles calls for the responsibility of everyone. “Martinique was exemplary in the 1st, 2nd and 3rd waves, today it is the territory where the virus has circulated the least. He still mourned a hundred families. And then we have to reach a much higher level of vaccination in Martinique, ”he emphasizes. The number of people with a complete vaccination schedule (1st and 2nd injections) was 50,262 as of July 20, or only 15.62% of the population of the island, against 45.9% nationally.
