PARIS (Reuters) – The French Ministry of Health has called on regional health agencies and hospitals to enter “crisis organization” from February 18 to prepare for a possible increase in coronavirus cases due to of highly contagious variants, Le Journal Du Dimanche reported on Sunday.
The measure, which would echo the measures taken in March and November 2020 when France went into national closures, involves increasing the number of available hospital beds, delaying non-urgent surgery and mobilizing all medical staff resources.
“This crisis organization must be implemented in each region, regardless of the level of hospital stress and must be operational from Thursday 18 February,” the health authority DGS said in a note quoted by the newspaper .
The DGS was not immediately available for comment on Reuters.
France reported 21,231 new confirmed cases of coronavirus on Saturday, slightly above 20,701 on Friday, bringing the total accumulated in France to 3,448,617, the sixth highest in the world.
In contrast to some of its neighbors struggling to control more contagious variants, France has resisted resorting to a new closure, in the hope that there will be a national curfew from December 15, first at 8 p.m. in the afternoon and then at 6 p.m., containing the pandemic.
However, some scientists believe that President Emmanuel Macron was committed to deciding against a new blockade despite the threat of highly contagious variants.
At the same time, France lags behind several other European countries, such as Britain, in the deployment of vaccines.
Health Minister Olivier Veran, who noted that the variant first detected in Britain accounted for 25% of new infections confirmed in France, said on Thursday the government would decide in the coming weeks if tougher restrictions were needed. at the national level.
Arnaud Fontanet, a member of the scientific council advising the government on COVID-19 policy, told Europe 1 radio on Saturday that he feared the variant first detected in Britain could represent the majority of cases in March.
Report by Dominique Vidalon and Jean-Stephane Brosse; edited by Barbara Lewis