New Defense Council at the Elysée Palace, requisitions for the production of protective masks: mobilization is increasing in France in an attempt to curb the dissemination of the new coronavirus, which threatens to take root over time. With four deaths and more than 200 confirmed cases on its territory, a doubling in three days, the country is preparing for a new intensification of the epidemic which now affects the daily life of the French. Among the measures taken, a decree which makes it possible to requisition the stocks of protective masks was published Wednesday in the official journal.
Closed schools, offbeat films
Are thus requisitioned, until May 31, the stocks of FFP2 type respiratory protection masks held by “any legal person of public or private law” and the stocks of anti-projection masks held by the companies which ensure their manufacturing or distribution.
In addition, the releases of two feature films, “Miss” by Ruben Alvès and “Rocks” by Sarah Gavron, were postponed by their producers due to the epidemic which led to the closure by prefectural order of 145 cinemas in Oise and Morbihan. For the same reasons, Sarah Gavron’s film “Rocks” is postponed to June 17, instead of April 15.
The Ministry of Health on Tuesday called participants in a rally organized in February by an evangelical church in Mulhouse to “watch themselves”, after the discovery of several confirmed cases of new coronavirus, while the prefecture of Haut-Rhin decided to the closure of three schools.
Of the 212 cases identified at this stage in France, seven, including five within the same family, were recorded during this gathering of several thousand people from February 17 to 24 on the site of La Porte Ouvert church. Christian, in the district of Bourtzwiller, in Mulhouse “, indicated at the time of a press conference the number two of the ministry, Pr Jérôme Salomon.
Masks and gels
Faced with this situation, the worried French rush to the masks and hydroalcoholic gels whose selling prices have soared. The Directorate General for the Repression of Fraud (DGCCRF) will investigate this increase. The Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris (AP-HP) has noted the theft in its establishments of at least 8,300 masks and 1,200 bottles of hydroalcoholic solutions. Some 2,000 surgical masks have also disappeared at the Conception hospital in Marseille.
To protect city doctors, the Minister of Health announced that ten million of these masks were going to be distributed in pharmacies in France. In addition to “five million surgical masks” already distributed “in regional health agencies and to health establishments and nursing homes for the elderly”.
Positive note: some fifty caregivers from Tenon hospital placed in quarantine because of the coronavirus “have resumed or will resume” work, said Tuesday evening the Public Assistance-Hospitals of Paris (AP-HP), which decided “the abandonment of systematic professional eviction” for “moderate risk” contacts.
Since the weekend, rallies of more than 5,000 people in “confined spaces” have been canceled or postponed. This concerns numerous concerts (such as those planned in Bercy by rapper Ninho, group Tryo and singer M. Pokora), as well as Book Fairs, Tourism Fairs and other trade fairs. On the sport side, L1 football matches are not subject to any particular restrictions at this stage, any more than the Top 14 rugby championship.
The number of new cases decreasing in China
China reported on Wednesday a decrease in the number of new coronavirus cases for the third consecutive day and an additional 38 deaths. The national death toll is now 2,981 dead, the National Health Commission said, with more than 80,200 people infected in total. 115 new cases were recorded in the central province of Hubei, epicenter of the epidemic where the virus first appeared in December, and only four elsewhere in the country.
For several days, the number of new cases has been declining in China, where draconian quarantine measures targeting more than 50 million people seem to be bearing fruit. But the country is worried about new contaminations on individuals screened upon their return from abroad. At least 13 cases of contamination of Chinese returnees have been identified in recent days, including eight returning from Italy, Tuesday in the province of Zhejiang (east). Italy is the European country most affected by the coronavirus.
In South Korea, the country most affected by the epidemic after China, the country listed Wednesday 142 new cases of coronavirus, an increase significantly lower than on Tuesday, but which brings the total of the cases observed in the country to 5328. Four new deaths have been announced, bringing the death toll from the South Korean epidemic to 32, according to the Korean Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC).
The strong daily increase in the number of cases recorded in the country is explained in particular by an intense screening campaign carried out with the followers of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus, a religious organization often accused of being a sect and which was one of the main vectors of the spread of the coronavirus in the south of the peninsula.
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