It was Gabriel Attal who confirmed it this Wednesday at the exit of the Council of Ministers: the mask will be mandatory again next week in 39 new departments, or 61 in total.
It is not the rules that change, but the epidemic which is starting again: in these departments, located all over the country, but particularly in the west, the incidence rate (proportion of new cases within the population) exceeded 50 per 100,000 inhabitants for five days in a row, the famous threshold that triggers the transition from level 1 to level 2 of the health protocol.
Thus, on Monday, we announced the list of the next 39 departments called to switch.
However, we will have to wait for the confirmation of this list in the Official Journal on Thursday.
According to the latest epidemiological point of Public Health France (SPF), at the national level, the incidence rate "was again increasing (+ 14%)" for the week of October 18.
The threshold of 50 cases per 100,000 inhabitants is exceeded “in 44 metropolitan departments” and is “increasing or stable in all regions”.
For example, it reached 73 per 100,000 inhabitants in Pays de la Loire (+ 52%).
Guislaine David, spokesperson for the main union of school teachers, the SnuiPP-FSU, explained to us on Monday that he feared such a scenario: “We had alerted the ministry to this hasty decision.
Scientists announced a rebound a month ago, it was unwise to drop the mask on the only population that cannot be vaccinated, ”she said.