Over the weekend, several dozen emergency room doctors signed an open letter in the newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche, warning that if something is not done, hospitals would soon have to begin choosing which patients receive treatment. They are on track to surpass even the first deadly wave of last spring. France's intensive care units are at capacity with more than 5,000 COVID-19 patients health officials say, and hospitalizations have already surpassed the second wave of this past winter.

The president's announcement was entirely anticipated. 'Everyone has to make sure not that they close themselves in, but that they limit, to the maximum, their contacts, meetings and time spent with others,' said Macron. 'We are choosing to have confidence in people's sense of responsibility,' he said.

Macron said unlike the first confinement last spring, people who leave their homes will not have to fill out a form with the time, date and purpose of their outing. Gatherings inside and outside are also banned and people will not be allowed to travel more than 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) from their homes. 'Everywhere the virus is spreading faster and faster and everywhere, hospitalizations are rising.' 'If we are choosing to close down the whole country it's because no area of the country is spared,' Macron said. In a televised address to the nation, Macron said a 'more dangerous, contagious and deadly' virus surging in France left him no choice. PARIS - Calling the new, faster-spreading variants of the coronavirus 'an epidemic within the epidemic,' French President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday extended a lockdown to the entire country and closed schools through the end of April. French President Emmanuel Macron has ordered the country into a third lockdown because of the continued spread of COVID-19. “We must act, and now, to avoid an acute national health emergency,” Merkel said in a videoconference.Young people gathered Wednesday by the Seine River in Paris, largely without masks and without social distancing. In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel announced a partial lockdown Wednesday that would allow shops and schools to remain open, but force other non-essential businesses to close. “The virus is circulating at a speed that not even the most pessimistic forecasts had anticipated,” he said. Macron said in a televised appearance that the country needed to “brutally apply the brakes” to stop the spread of the virus. Macron said the move was to prevent the threat of the country being “overwhelmed by a second wave that no doubt will be harder than the first.”įrance has seen the highest number of daily deaths from the virus since spring and has logged tens of thousands of new cases every day, according to the BBC. Non-essential businesses will all be shuttered, but schools, and factories will remain open, according to the report. The lockdown, which will go into effect Friday, will last until at least the end of November, the BBC reported. COVID masks stopped people from smiling - they're taking lessons to relearnīFFs Randi and Rochelle proved to be our children's worst enemiesīiden's pick for new CDC czar embodies the worst of pandemic policyĪFT boss questioned school reopening plan in chummy exchange with CDC chief: textsįrench President Emmanuel Macron announced Wednesday that the country would move into another nationwide lockdown to prevent the spread of coronavirus as a second wave of the virus has cut rapidly across the nation, a report said.

France new lockdown today