France is to reopen its borders with the UK, closed earlier this week over fears about the new variant of the coronavirus detected in England, but only to blocked truck drivers, French citizens and others resident in France, and on condition they present a negative result of a test for the virus, according to French media reports.
France on Sunday joined a growing number of EU countries closing their borders to British travellers following the rapid spread in England of a reportedly more infectious variant of the coronavirus that causes Covid-19.
Immunologist Jean-François Delfraissy, president of the Frances advisory body on Covid-19, the Scientific Council, said the coronavirus vaccine rollout will take longer than previously envisaged, and that a return to normal life post-epidemic is not likely to occur before the autumn of 2021.
The French president, who on Thursday went into self isolation after being diagnosed with Covid-19, had the previous evening met with around ten senior aides and elected officials for a dinner which went on until midnight, while regulations imposed on the public to slow the coronavirus epidemic stipulate no more than six adults should meet socially together and all must be back home by 8pm.
French President Emmanuel Macron has testsed positive for Covid-19, his office announced on Thursday, and as a result his prime minister Jean Castex and several several European leaders recently in contact with the 42-year-old are now self-isolating
French Prime Minister Jean Castex said on Wednesday that the Pfizer/BioNTech anti-Covid-19 vaccine could begin to be administered in France in late December if it is approved by the European Union regulatory agency at a key meeting next week.
When the coronavirus epidemic swept France this spring, the département (county) of Savoie, in the French Alps, was relatively unaffected. But last month, as the second wave of Covid-19 emerged, it became the country’s worst-hit by virus infections. Why? François Bonnet reports.
PM Jean Castex said that families would be allowed to travel to celebrate Christmas together in France but that museums, theatres and cinemas will remain closed for an extra three weeks as the number of new Covid-19 infections begins to slowly rise again.
One month after the second lockdown was imposed in France to contain the resurge in Covid-19 cases, non-essntial shops and businesses, except bars and restaurants, were allowed to re-open as of Saturday amid a slow but regular fall in recorded deaths and new infections nationwide.
In a televised speech to the nation on Tuesday evening, French President Emmanuel Macron announced measures to ease the second firm lockdown on public movement introduced at the end of October to attempt to contain a resurgence in the coronavirus epidemic, with shops and entertainment venues to be reopened as of next weekend, but cafés and restaurants will have to wait at least until Januarty 20th before resuming business.
Released online earlier this month, Hold-Up is a French pseudo-documentary which promotes the conspiracy theory that Covid-19 was created in a plot by a group of powerful individuals to reshape the world in their interests. Despite the absurdity of the idea, and its inability to produce evidence to support its case, the film attracted an audience of more than three million in the first week of its appearance. Lucie Delaporte reports on an exercise in manipulation of the gullible.
While slight improvements on numbers of Covid-19 virus infections and hospitalisations have begun emerging across France, the government's spokesman on Wednesday said 'we're still far from' lifting the lockdown imposed for a second time at the end of October, dampening hopes of small high-street businesses for a re-opening of trading before Christmas.
