Macron imposes a second national lockdown to stop the second wave

France returns to the starting square.

President Emmanuel Macron announced Wednesday a confinement of the entire French population similar, although somewhat softer, to the one that the pandemic halted last spring.

The second confinement, which will come into effect on Friday and will last until December 1, will again prevent, as between March and April, leaving without a receipt, will prohibit from small meetings to collective events and will force the closure of businesses considered not essential.

But, unlike the first, schools will remain open and industry, agriculture, construction and administration will continue to function as far as possible.

Another difference: family members will be able to visit their elders in the residences.

In a prime-time speech, the president admitted that the advance of the pandemic had surprised him, but stressed that the same had happened across Europe.

"We are all at the same point, overwhelmed by a second wave that, now we know, will undoubtedly be harder and more lethal than the first," he said.

“If we don't brutally put the brakes on contamination, our hospitals will soon be saturated […] And doctors will have to choose between a covid patient and a victim of a road accident, or between two covid patients.

Taking into account our values, what France is, this is unacceptable ”, he added.

The President of France, Emmanuel Macron.

On video, Macron announces a new confinement throughout France until December 1. (PHOTO: EP | VIDEO: EPV)

The second confinement, which will be submitted to Parliament this Thursday, will represent a new blow to the French economy and a new obstacle to exit the recession.

But the President of the Republic rejected the dichotomy between saving the economy and saving health: with an uncontrolled virus and a health system in crisis, he said, the economy cannot function, and without a strong economy that finances it, the health system is untenable.

The Government, which recommends a return to teleworking, plans to extend the so-called partial unemployment (the Spanish Ertes) and aid to companies and the self-employed.

In fifteen days, it will evaluate if some businesses can reopen.

"The economy must not stop or sink," he said.

The numbers of cases, admissions to the ICU and deaths have increased faster than expected in recent weeks.

On Tuesday alone, 523 people died, the highest number since April.

In total, more than 35,500 have died since the start of the pandemic.

In the last 24 hours, 33,417 new cases were registered, bringing the total to almost 1.2 million.

In July, 1.9% of people who were tested for covid-19 were positive;

now they are 18.4%.

Intensive care beds are 57.5% occupied and in regions such as the capital, Paris, the rate exceeds 60%.

Macron explained that, until daily cases have been reduced to about 5,000 and hospital admissions have slowed, the strategy, failed until now, of tests, tracking and isolation will not be able to start.

The measure is a response to the second runaway wave and in the face of which recent measures, such as the night curfew in much of the territory, were insufficient.

The curfew between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. came into force in Paris and the main French cities on October 17 and last week it was extended to 54 administrative departments in which 46 of the 67 million live inhabitants in France.

"We have the impression that no one has learned from what happened in March and April," said Dr. Christophe Prudhomme, spokesman for the French Association of Emergency Physicians, linked to the left-wing union CGT, and a doctor in the emergency department of the Avicenna hospital, on the

Paris

.

What is confinement?

Does it mean that we have not progressed since the Middle Ages?

That to fight against the epidemic there is nothing better than confinement?

It is catastrophic ”.

Prudhomme warned of the collateral effects of the confinement.

“This morning, in my service, the problem was not to find beds to hospitalize patients with covid-19, more or less we managed, but instead we had difficulties with a patient with a problem of acute lung edema, which he has had a motorcycle accident and his leg is broken, and in these cases it was very difficult to find a place ”.

Macron made the decision after the so-called Defense Council met twice, the kind of restricted Council of Ministers that has driven the crisis away from the public spotlight.

On Thursday the government, criticized for the lack of transparency surrounding decisions on the pandemic, will submit the measures to the National Assembly and the Senate in search of parliamentary legitimacy.

"We will have better days and we will find happy days again, I am convinced," he said in a speech in May.

In another speech in June, after concluding the de-escalation, he celebrated "this first victory against the virus."

And in April, in a meeting with journalists, when asked whether he excluded a new confinement, he replied: "In theory nothing can be excluded, but we strive to do everything to prevent it."

In view of the new confinement, it has not been enough.

Information about the coronavirus

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