French Prime Minister Jean Castex announced that fireworks and meetings on public roads will not be allowed on the New Year due to the coronavirus.
“Meetings and alcohol consumption on public roads will be prohibited and we will invite municipalities to renounce fireworks,” he explained.
In addition, France will force health workers and firefighters to apply the booster dose of the COVID-19 vaccine to prevent the spread of contagions that are already appearing in some hospitals and that this causes staff shortages to attend to the patients.
The Minister of Health, Olivier Véran , stressed this Saturday, in an interview with the France Inter station , that vaccination must be accelerated against the Omicron variant, which is “much, much, much more contagious” than Delta, and that it could be majority in France within two weeks.
“Those who are not vaccinated will be infected and there will be serious cases,” he warned after insisting that the objective of generalizing vaccination is “to avoid a very strong surge in hospitals.” In this regard, he recalled that there are already 52 million people vaccinated in the country, but there are about five million without immunization.
His department estimates that between 7 and 10% of infections are currently from Ómicron and that, given the speed of spread, that percentage will rise to 25-30% in one week and more than 50% in two.