{"id":106762,"date":"2021-02-11T05:27:36","date_gmt":"2021-02-11T05:27:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fin2me.com\/?p=106762"},"modified":"2021-02-11T05:27:36","modified_gmt":"2021-02-11T05:27:36","slug":"france-was-right-to-decide-against-new-national-lockdown-health-minister","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fin2me.com\/markets\/france-was-right-to-decide-against-new-national-lockdown-health-minister\/","title":{"rendered":"France was right to decide against new national lockdown – health minister"},"content":{"rendered":"
PARIS (Reuters) – The COVID-19 situation in France is currently stable and the government was right to have decided against imposing a new national lockdown, Health Minister Olivier Veran said on Tuesday<\/p> Veran also told France Info radio \u201cit is possible and indeed preferable\u201d that France would not have to be locked down again.<\/p>\n \u201cFor three weeks we have had (on average) 20,000 new cases per day and 3,000-3,200 patients in intensive care units. It\u2019s stable but high…It does not call for national lockdown measures,\u201d Veran said.<\/p>\n The number of people in France who have died from COVID-19 infections rose by 458 on Monday to 79,423 – the seventh-highest death toll globally.<\/p>\n Unlike some of its neighbours, France has refrained from imposing a third national lockdown, hoping that a curfew in place since Dec. 15 and a vaccination programme that has now given shots to more than 2 million people will be enough to rein in the spread of the disease.<\/p>\n Veran said he expected that between 3.5 milllion and 4 million people in France would have received their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine by the end of February.<\/p>\n Some health officials have however warned about the strain being placed on the hospital system and the impact of more contagious variants of the coronavirus.<\/p>\n Veran reiterated that the AstraZeneca\u2019s vaccine was efficient against 99% of the COVID-19 strains in France but that France was considering using vaccines other than AstraZeneca\u2019s vaccine for overseas territories.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are monitoring the progression of the South African variant, notably in {the French island of) Mayotte. We are considering increasing the protection of health workers in overseas territories,\u201d he said<\/p>\n South Africa decided to put on hold use of AstraZeneca\u2019s COVID-19 shot in its vaccination programme after data showed it gave minimal protection against mild-to-moderate infection caused by the country\u2019s dominant coronavirus variant.<\/p>\n Health authorities reported 4,317 new confirmed COVID-19 cases in France on Monday, down from 19,715 on Sunday and 4,347 last Monday. The number of people in hospital with the virus went up by 343, to 28,037.<\/p>\n