The executive is still working on different alternatives to national confinement, but increasingly strict measures are already in effect. Hazardous estimates do not help the anxiety-provoking atmosphere. Without light at the end of the tunnel, the future looks difficult.
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After the Alpes-Maritimes, after Dunkirk, Île-de-France is about to be confined on weekends? As with other regions, the plan is being studied by the government. A measure that the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, describes as “Difficult, hard, even inhuman”, she whose deputy Emmanuel Grégoire demanded a strict confinement of three weeks.
The municipality finally leaned for less restrictive … or more “human” proposals, the mayor of the capital would say: ventilate classrooms or transpose them to other places, make clinics available to relieve congestion in hospitals …
The response was not long in coming, however. To justify its strictest measures, the government retorted through Gabriel Attal, its spokesperson, that“There is nothing more inhuman than the virus.”
A formula in turn accused of indecency, while some citizens are hit hard by health constraints. “A third of French people today consider themselves” in depression “, 50% of young people say they are” worried about their mental health “, 30% of students have” suicidal thoughts “”, recalls François Ruffin in a Tribune published on its website this Tuesday, March 2.
The LFI deputy of the Somme is indignant at new restrictions taken without consultation and crisis management that he considers ineffective. For him the “freedoms tap” is closed in an arbitrary and dangerous manner, endangering many categories of people.
The government “no longer offers us a horizon”
Worse still, according to the former activist and founder of the magazine Fakir, better days are absolutely not on the agenda. No improvement is to be anticipated and the end of the crisis does not seem to be on the cards.
“Reconfining the weekend, but what for? Just to have a bad time, waiting for the next one? In a policy of one step forward, three steps back? And the curfew, until when? […] The government no longer offers us any horizon. It’s day-to-day, weekly, piecemeal, without a strategy, ”says François Ruffin.
In short, the end of the crisis hardly seems to be approaching. Significant indicator, the state of health emergency, which was initially due to end on February 16, has already been extended until June 1 inclusive. Globally and through its director of emergency operations, the WHO has just described as “unrealistic” the prospect of crisis exit before 2022. Not very encouraging forecasts and that the vaccination campaign does not diminish, singled out in France for its slowness.
An expected hardening, but the French need air
“You have to push people out”, launched doctor Martin Blachier, in opposition to the prevailing discourse on the need for confinement, arguing, just like doctor Gérald Kierzek, that the contaminations take place in a closed place and not outside.
“A people willing to sacrifice a little freedom for a little security deserves neither, and ends up losing both. »Benjamin Franklin
– Dr Gérald KIERZEK⚡????⚕️ (@gkierzek) March 1, 2021
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Others, more virulent, like the polemicist Yann Moix, even called for the revolt of the students in the event of new confinement, believing that “The number of victims of confinement is greater than the number of victims of the Covid.” A similar remark to the journalist of Figaro Ivan Rioufol in front of the cameras of Sputnik.
Trying to procrastinate and urging caution, the government has signaled that “The coming weeks will be difficult”. One way to let people know that the time is still for concern and that relief is not being considered in the days to come. The defense council of March 3 could potentially lead to new restrictions, localized or … at the national level, despite Emmanuel Macron’s stated desire to avoid national re-containment.
At the Élysée, still hazardous estimates
Traveling in the suburbs on March 1, the President of the Republic wanted to be a bearer of hope and asked the French to hold out “four to six weeks”. However, this reassuring position could well cause some false joys, his entourage taking care to clarify Emmanuel Macron’s words by being more pessimistic.
“In the short term, the situation is risky. We expect a rise in contaminations in mid-March, if this is the case the tightening of the constraints will be inevitable, ”confides a minister to the Parisian.
As for the numbers, what are they really? Does a severe rebound in the epidemic justify this generalized concern? The latest figures show 1,705 new admissions to the hospital in 24 hours (+312 compared to Monday). And if the total number of admitted patients (25,263 currently) is down, 3,586 of them are in intensive care (+42 compared to the day before) and 366 entered intensive care in 24 hours (+19) .
A slight increase in critical cases therefore, but which is not the tidal wave that the surrounding discourse suggests, judges epidemiologist Catherine Hill. A few days ago, it did not notice “No overall increase in the number of cases in the country, the number of new hospitalizations, arrivals in intensive care and the number of deaths. ”
So what to do with “Four to six weeks” additional efforts requested by Emmanuel Macron? The epidemiologist is hardly more approving, believing that the head of state sort “From his hat”.
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