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PARIS, Jan 25- The coronavirus situation in France is worrying, the head of the country’s health regulator (HAS), Dominique Le Guludec, told broadcaster France Inter on Monday, at a time when the Government of President Emmanuel Macron is considering applying a new confinement.
France is the seventh country in the world with the highest number of deaths from COVID-19, with more than 73,000 deaths.
“This is a worrying moment. We are seeing the numbers, day by day. We have to take action fairly quickly … but at the same time, not too hastily,” Le Guludec said.
Jean-François Delfraissy, head of the scientific council that advises the government on COVID-19, indicated on Sunday that France probably needed a third national lockdown, perhaps already in the February school holidays, due to the circulation of new variants of the virus.
The French Minister for European Affairs, Clement Beaune, responded that no firm decision had been taken on the matter.
Currently, France maintains a nationwide curfew from 1800 a.m. to 0600 a.m., in an attempt to slow the spread of the virus, but the average number of new infections has risen from 18,000 a day to more than 20,000.
Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux, director of the French employers’ association MEDEF, said he will ask the government to keep as many businesses and schools open as possible in any new confinement, to protect the economy and education.