No New Year’s Eve curfew and even less new confinement; a return to school maintained for January 3 and cultural or sporting venues still open despite reduced gauges: faced with the worrying progression of the virus which has exceeded the symbolic bar of 100,000 cases before Christmas, the government has decided to impose without really constrain, by announcing new measures, Monday, December 27. A clean political strategy, which stands out from the choices made by most of our European neighbors. Several countries of the European Union have in fact opted for a serious turn of the screw, before and after Christmas Eve, in order to curb the extreme virality of the Omicron variant which is sweeping the Old Continent.
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It is the Nordic states which have decided to take the most drastic measures. If, since mid-December, the Danemark, for example, has closed its cultural venues and forced restaurants to lower the curtains between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m., it is in the Netherlands that the restrictions are the most important. Dince December 19 and at least until January 14, the country is indeed totally confined.
In Germany, where the symbolic bar of 60,000 daily contaminations was crossed at the end of November, negative tests are no longer sufficient to access places open to the public. And as of Tuesday, gatherings are limited to 10 people for the vaccinated and two people for the unvaccinated. In Italie, wearing an FFP2 mask is compulsory in transport, stadiums and cultural venues. In Spain, a curfew has also been decided for Catalonia, between 1 and 6 a.m.
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Radical choices which therefore stand out, given the decisions announced by Prime Minister Jean Castex Monday evening. Franceinfo explains why the executive is reluctant to take much more restrictive measures for the moment.
Because France is banking on vaccination
Jean Castex and his Minister of Health, Olivier Véran, recalled this on Monday during their press conference: “Vaccination remains at the heart of our strategy. It protects against serious forms of Covid-19 “ and therefore against “the risks of hospitalization”. While 77% of French people have received at least two doses of vaccine, according to figures from Public Health France, and the vaccination campaign for the third injection is in full swing (22 million people are triply vaccinated), the government prefers to bet on the all-vaccine strategy to try to stem the fifth wave of the epidemic.
A vaccine strategy used as the main weapon against the Omicron variant and that the executive wanted to strengthen even more. The time between two booster doses was reduced from four to three months as of Tuesday and the government insists that it wants “to put pressure on the unvaccinated while seeking to reach out and convince our fellow citizens who are still very far from the healthcare system”.
The hunt for fake sanitary passes is also opened by Jean Castex. “It is not admissible and we must collectively give ourselves the means to stop it, and to sanction it more heavily”. The bill on the vaccination pass, which will soon be debated in Parliament, intends to put pressure on the five million unvaccinated French people, and in particular those who illegally bypass vaccination. “That means that in places where the pass has been applied for several months, you will have to justify being vaccinated to be able to enter “, assures the head of government.
Because hospitals are not (yet) overwhelmed
As contaminations linked to the Omicron variant explode across the country, the hospital is still holding on for the moment. The working conditions are difficult for all the nursing staff, but the establishments are not saturated as during the very first wave, in March 2020.
According to Public Health France, daily hospitalizations are currently stable, even if 1,634 new hospital admissions have been recorded in the last 24 hours. This figure is up from the previous week, when 1,466 new patients were identified, and this trend is starting to put the country’s hospital services under pressure. Still according to Public Health France, the number of patients in critical care has also increased by 10% and daily hospital deaths by 14%.
“With every measure taken by the government, one can always find a ridiculous side, such as not being able to drink your coffee standing at the counter. But these measures will undoubtedly reduce the most risky situations. This remains difficult to measure, unlike the overall data that can be collected with generalized confinement. But reducing, for example, the gauges inside and outside will necessarily have a positive impact.“, projects Astrid Vabret, head of the virology department at the CHU de Caen.
Because Emmanuel Macron “cannot be unpopular four months before the presidential election”
The head of state, who is not yet officially a candidate for the 2022 presidential election, knows he is playing big with this new wave of the epidemic. In order not to take measures that are too liberticidal and therefore appear to be unpopular only four months before the ballot, Emmanuel Macron therefore continues to bet on the strategy he adopted a year ago: vaccination, combined with strict compliance with barrier gestures. .
“Emmanuel Macron tries to avoid becoming unpopular, that’s for sure (…) But if hospitals were to be totally overwhelmed, the subject of the future of the hospital in France could return to the presidential campaign and give angles of attack to the political opponents of Emmanuel Macron “, analysis Bruno Cautrès, political scientist at the Center for Political Research of Sciences Po (Cevipof).
Because the government does not want to put a stop to the functioning of the country
The President of the Republic does not want to change his bet on the virus and slow down the country’s economy. Faced with the increase in sick leaves – between November 1 and mid-December, the number of exceptional work stoppages for people needing to self-isolate has multiplied by more than 7, from 5,763 to 42,541 -, the government is even considering relaxing the isolation rules for contact cases.
No question either of giving in to the wishes of health personnel. Fifty caregivers signed on Sunday a platform in the JDD to ask the government to postpone the start of the January school year, due to the many cases of contamination identified in schools.
“At the start of 2021, Emmanuel Macron had not followed the recommendations of the Scientific Council and had chosen the perspective of a recovery in economic life. As until now, it had worked rather well, he remains today in the same logic. “
Bruno Cautrès, political scientist at Cevipofto franceinfo
Will the executive therefore be able to hold out for a long time in the face of the extreme contagiousness of the Omicron variant? Should more drastic measures be taken as in our European neighbors?
These measures “marketing”, as qualified the ecologist Sandrine Rousseau at the microphone of France Inter Tuesday, the scientific world has also commented. LProfessor Enrique Casalino, for example, estimated on franceinfo that they would not allow “a reduction in the rapid epidemic wave”. For his part, epidemiologist Mahmoud Zureik welcomed the measures taken by the government, even if he would have wanted the health protocol to be strengthened in schools, bars and restaurants.