France should cancel Christmas and New Year to avoid third wave says Paris hospital chief

Should France remain locked down over Christmas and New Year? One hospital chief thinks so

Credit:  JOEL SAGET/AFP

France’s traditional Christmas and New Year’s celebrations should be cancelled this year over fears it could lead to a third Covid wave, according to a Paris hospital director.

Julien Lenglet said there was a risk that Christmas and New Year’s Eve parties could end up as a "giant, intergenerational cluster” that could lead to a resurgence of the disease, which has already killed more than 40,000 people in France.

”I would say, without any hesitation, that we ought to cancel Christmas and Saint-Sylvestre (New Year’s Eve celebrations),” said Mr Lenglet, who works at the Antony Hospital in the Paris region.

France entered a second, national lockdown at the end of October, albeit one less draconian than the first in March with schools remaining open and far more people still going to work.

French health officials this week said that the country would hit the peak of the second wave within the next week and that there were faintly encouraging signs that the rise in hospitalisation and intensive care occupancies was starting to slow.

That had led some to hope that the country would reopen in time for the Christmas season.

With more than 1.8 million confirmed cases since the outbreak of the disease, France has the fourth-highest tally of infections in the world, behind only the United States, India and Brazil.

France hopes to reach the peak of the second wave within a week

Credit: ALAIN JOCARDALAIN JOCARD
 /AFP

President Emmanuel Macron warned last month that the current lockdown would last at least a month – until early December – but many believe it will continue until at least the end of the year.

Jean Castex, the French prime minister is due to address the nation on Tuesday evening.

On Sunday, health minister Olivier Véran said that the current measures had “enabled a kind of slowdown in the epidemic’s advance but it is too early to judge the effects of the lockdown”.

He added: “We want to celebrate Christmas as a family, with joy, naturally. We want to be able to prepare it with joy but we know deep down that given the spread of the virus, at Christmas we will have to be careful of the people around us.”

He refused to predict whether a current travel ban between regions would be lifted so families can reunite.

“The French will be given the necessary visibility. We’re still in November. Today, the focus is on the epidemic wave in our hospitals. First things first.”

The transport minister, Jean-Baptiste Djebbari also said that he couldn’t predict at all what the situation would be after December 15 for Christmas festivities and after.”

Either way, train and plane tickets can be fully reimbursed or exchanged at no extra cost, he added.

France’s national rail operator, SNCF, has reduced the number of trains by 70 per cent in the coming weeks and bookings are now open for Christmas. If lockdown is lifted in the meantime, the number of trains will be increased.

There are faint signs of a slowdown in hospitalisations and intensive care intake in the Paris area but other areas are still on the rise

Credit: JEFF PACHOUD/AFP

According to France Info, one indication that the French government expects to maintain lockdown beyond early December is the fact that it has already set aside €20bn in the latest “rectified budget”– above the €15bn the finance ministry had estimated it would cost for a month.

Also, government predictions of an 11 per cent drop in growth in 2020 compared to previous predictions of 10 per cent suggest that it expects lockdown to continue, according to the French Higher Council of State Finances. 

France recorded 551 deaths on Monday in the previous 24 hours – the highest number since the start of the second wave. The highest daily toll in the first wave in April was 613. However, daily hospitalisations fell from 500 last week to 400 and daily intensive care intake from 500 to 400.

Almost 4,700 intensive beds are now taken up by Covid patients with France able to extend capacity to around 7,500. The death toll is now around 41,000.