France imposed a month-long lockdown on Paris and parts of the north after a faltering vaccine rollout and spread of highly contagious coronavirus variants forced President Emmanuel Macron to shift course, Reuters reports.
Since late January, when he defied the calls of scientists and some in his government to lock the country down, Macron has said he would do whatever it took to keep the euro zone’s second largest economy as open as possible.
However, this week he ran out of options just as France and other European countries briefly suspended use of the AstraZenca vaccine.
His prime minister, Jean Castex, said France was in the grip of a third wave, with the virulent variant first detected in Britain now accounting for some 75 percent of infections. Intensive care wards are under severe strain, notably in Paris where the incidence rate surpasses 400 infections in every 100,000 inhabitants.
“The epidemic is getting worse. Our responsibility now is to not let it escape our control,” Castex told a news conference.
France reported 35,000 new infectiones on Thursday and there were more patients in intensive care in Paris than at the peak of the second wave.
