Weekly French Covid Thread
A good week. The 5th (or some say 6th) wave of Covid is now falling fast.
Infections – 98.9% Omicron – have dropped by one fifth in 7 days.
They are still averaging 274,352 a day, however. Acute cases and deaths, though stable, remain very high. 1/10
The government started to remove social restrictions, as planned, on Wed of this week. No more limits on numbers in stadiums, theatres etc. No more compulsory home working or masks outdoors. From 16 Feb, clubs can reopen. Standing in bars and eating on trains can resume. 2/10
The health minister Olivier Véran said yesterday: “the worst is behind us”. Rules on testing in schools would probably be eased from next week, he said. The vaccine pass may be scrapped before its promised end in July.
Hmm... just before the April elections? 3/10
Overall, it appears that the government/Macron will emerge from the 5/6th wave pretty well. Their decisions, much criticised by experts, to refuse a lock down before Christmas and to give an early timetable for removal of controls last month have largely been vindicated. 4/10
I’d only say that the death rate remains disturbingly high at 265 a day, up 3% in a week. Contrary to what I said last week, it appears that many of these deaths are victims of Omicron, not Delta. They are mostly over 70 and disproportionately unvaccinated. 5/10
Could lives have been saved by a lock-down? More to the point, I think, lives could have been saved by a higher rate of vaccination/booster jabbing among the over-80s. This remains France’s achilles heel. Over 80’s are the least-vaxxed adult age tranche at just over 90%. 6/10
Other stats this week:
As of last night there were “only” 3,643 C19 cases in acute care, 1% down on last week. Daily intake to acute care is, however 6% up. Deaths, 3% up at 265 a day, are levelling off but still very high.
7/10
There were 274,352 new cases yesterday, bringing the weekly average down to 289,231. Some of this decline may be down to reduced testing but Omicron definitely appears to be receding.
8/10
Over 54m French people have now been first vaccinated, 80.2% of the population. Over 36m have been booster-jabbed but talk of Omicron’s “mildness” etc has reduced third-vaxxing to less than 200,000 a day, way behind the target.
It’s not necessarily so mild for us oldies.
9/10
Hang in there. 10/ 10
Share this Scrolly Tale with your friends.
A Scrolly Tale is a new way to read Twitter threads with a more visually immersive experience.
Discover more beautiful Scrolly Tales like this.