The French health minister, Olivier Véran, is about to give a press conference. He isn't expected to make firm announcements on a new lockdown etc but will give the latest info on circulation of the UK variant of Covid and the French vaccination programme. Will tweet main points.
Health minister Véran says France is not suffering a powerful new wave of the epidemic but remains on a "high plateau" which is "sloping upwards".
Véran says hospitals are facing an increase in cases and acute cases in last two weeks. Compared to the autumn, just before 2nd lockdown, good new and bad. Vax programme is now in place but new variants of virius threaten...
New variants, especially UK variant, now rising steadily, he says. From 500 cases a day at beginning of Jan to 2,000 cases a day now (about one in ten of all cases). All must be done to check this "epidemic within the epidemic".
Veran says he knows the extreme difficulty of the efforts made so far. New restrictions will be necessary, he warns, (no details) but he says he also wants to leave French with a "perspective of hope" (no details).
Veran now being asked about vaccine shortages...He says Fr getting six doses instead of 5 out of each Pfizer vaccine bottle. But still expected the different companies who have committed to supply the EU to meet their commitments...
In other words, he has dodged so far the question of the impact of the AstraZenica row on the French vax programme. But he hasn't been asked directly about it by the journalist pool (yet).
Veran insists 6pm to 6am curfew has been effective but not strong enough to deal with the new faster-moving variants. Refuses to go into detail of what new measures may be coming down the track.
Presser coming to an end. Very few and poor questions. Nothing on the EU-Astrazenica row. Nothing much on the present level of the Fr vax programme. No new vax figures or projections. Why bother?
Only really new fact was that there are now 2,000 cases a day of the "new variants" of Covid in France, about one in ten of all cases and a fourfold increase in a month. We had similar stats already for the Ile de France (Paris area) but not the whole country.
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