The curfew introduced on October 17 in the metropolis of Saint-Etienne will be extended to the entire Loire department on Friday at midnight, we learned Wednesday evening from concordant sources.
The measure, which will be formalized after the speech of the head of government, Jean Castex, and the Minister of Health, Olivier Véran, will be the subject of a prefectural decree on Friday, announced the prefect of the Loire during a live facebook attended by all the mayors and parliamentarians of the department.
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During this videoconference, the director general of ARS Auvergne Rhône-Alpes, Jean-Yves Grall, drew up a picture of the health situation of the department, revealing that the incidence rate reached 673 in the Loire, against 569 for the Rhône and 432 for Isère.
The regional director of the ARS noted that
"the progression of the epidemic, constant for several weeks, puts, unfortunately, the Loire in pole position".
He also underlined that
"in the metropolis of Saint-Etienne, the incidence rate has risen to 807 and that the entire department is affected almost everywhere, with rates at more than 250 at the present time".
Concerning
"the markers of the epidemic that are also the clusters, we currently have 26 which are active and which are the subject of considerable work, including 17 in nursing homes",
he added.
"Hospitals are under high tension, which leads to several measures",
also underlined the representative of the ARS, announcing
"that from Monday, the interventions will all be deprogrammed in the hospitals of the region, except the emergencies, so as to free up the capacities of medical and paramedical personnel to deal with this influx of patients ”.
“For the moment, we have the sad record for the most degraded indicators in France. This justifies that we are a little more offensive in the measures. Very tight controls, however, show great respect for the population as a whole. It must last ”
, for her part specified the prefect Catherine Séguin.
“My goal is for the curfew to extend across the entire department from zero on Saturday.
This is the last step before that of re-containment that we must absolutely avoid, as in March, ”
she concluded.
