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France
› Coronavirus 2021
Covid
in France - 2021.
Masks
in style... and obligatory in some places and for some professions .....
As of the start of spring 2021, France remains under strict Covid
rules. There is hope that most rules will be relaxed by the start of
summer, and that come July life will be back to something near normal
for a large part of the population.
As of Mid March 2021, there is no national lockdown, though a national
curfew requiring people to be home each evening by 6 p.m. Two areas,
the area around
Dunkirk right in the northeast, and the area
around
Nice, right in the southeast, are under local lockdowns. Some
other parts of France, and most notably the
Paris area, are under
strict supervision, and may see local lockdowns introduced at any
moment if the rate of infection should increase to an alarming level.
Covid patients are being sent from Paris hospitals to hospitals in
other less affected parts of France, in order to free up beds for
routine care in hospitals in the Paris region.
Restaurants, bars, theatres and cinemas have been closed since the
autumn, and are unlikely to reopen before the infection rate drops to a
manageable level nationwide, in the region of no more than 5000 new
cases per day. In March, the daily number of new cases is five times
greater than this. Many restaurants are surviving by running a carry-out service.
Most museums and historic monuments, including the Louvre and
the Château de Versailles, are temporarily closed to visitors. As soon
as possible, they will reopen, but with strictly enforced
limits on visitor numbers.
There
are no travel restrictions within France, and most hotels are open
(except for those that are normally closed out of season); most hotels
will provide carry-out meals for guests to eat in their room.
Museums
may reopen soon, but only to people
wearing a mask.....
Large out-of-town shopping malls have been closed, but smaller shopping
centres, garden centres, DIY stores and small shops remain open for
business. Most sports venues, and virtually all indoor sports venues,
have been closed since the start of the year, and will not reopen until
the coast is clear. All businesses and facilities that remain open are
required to apply strict social distancing measures, and in most places
the public has gone along with the rules, though inevitably there have
been some who remain oblivious to the risks, and some who deliberately
flout the rules.
The
vaccination campaign in France has been beset by problems,
including a very sluggish start-up and an a certain degree of
scepticism with regard to the effectiveness of vaccinations. The
medical profession however is very much behind the vaccination
campaign, and keeps calling for it to be speeded up. By mid-March, just
over 5 million people in France had received a first dose of the
vaccine (far less than in the UK, but above average for EU countries) ,
and almost two million (
more than in the UK) had received both shots.