Thread by @john_lichfield

Weekly French Covid thread
There is good news on the key stats which suggest that the third wave has reached a plateau and may have peaked. On the other had France is about to pass – today or tomorrow – the grim milestone of 100,000 official C19 deaths since March last year 1/10

Other bad news. There are growing fears about the possible impact of the Brazilian variant which appears to be more aggressive and more damaging to younger people. As things stand the Braz. AND SA variants are 4.2% of French cases. Flights from Brazil have been suspended. 2/10

The French vax programme continues to flourish (largely unremarked by UK media). There were 453,689 injections yesterday – a new Tues record – including 309,704 1st shots. The target was 10m 1st jabs by April 15. France was at 11.3m last night and could hit 12m tomorrow.
3/10

But the clot-linked delay to roll-out of the J&J vaccine (due to start in EU this week) and resistance to AstraZeneca in France (which is real but far from universal) may hamper efforts to reach 20m 1st shots by 15 May. PM Castex will make a statement promoting AZ shortly. 4/10

Pr. Macron will chair a meeting tomorrow to plan a gradual French reopening from mid-May as he promised. This is a preliminary meeting. Nothing is certain. Despite improving stats, some experts predict a long slope down from the 3rd wave - not the abrupt fall of a year ago. 5/10

As of last night France had recorded 99,480 Covid deaths since 1 March last year. Other stats suggest probably 10 to 12,000 home deaths aren’t included in that figure. Otherwise, the Fr. stats (judging by excess mortality) are pretty reliable – unlike some other countries. 6/10

Macron is expected to address the nation again by the end of the month – maybe much sooner – to mark the 100,000 milestone and offer hope that the worst may soon be over. It certainly appears that his “lockdown lite” and previous regional restrictions are having an effect. 7/10

The incidence rate in France – cases per 100,000 in 7 days - was 342.48 last Sat. A week earlier it was 405. The Paris area has all the “worst five” départements - from Seine-Saint Denis at 680.24 to Paris itself at 516.97. But even these numbers are falling. 8/10

The daily av. of cases was 31,559 in the last week (using a 9 day average to iron out reporting glitches and so different from the graph below). It was 36,550 in previous 7 days. Deaths rose to 315 a day after 276 last week and 347 the week before. 9/10

Acute/hospital cases continue to rise, but less steeply. There are now 5,952 people in acute care – the highest figure in almost a year. But this was roughly 5% up on the previous week compared 10% up the week before.
Hang in there.
10/10