CURFEW. While the waves of the Covid-19 epidemic swept over France, the curfew was rejected during a Health Defense Council organized on Wednesday January 5, 2022. On the other hand, in the Overseas Territories, the measure will be applied to slow the spread of the coronavirus. What should prepare the metropolis for an identical fate?
[Mis à jour le 7 janvier 2022, à 17h52] Is a return of the curfew possible in 2022? If the question can be asked, the government has set a guideline that it intends to hold until the end to end the epidemic, based on the vaccination. In an interview with readers of the Parisian, published Tuesday January 4, 2022, Emmanuel Macron assured that no new constraint would come into force at the end of the Health Defense Council which was organized on January 5. “The decisions were announced last week, so we have to let them live,” he said. At the Health Defense Council, no date for reassessment of the epidemic situation has, for the time being, been communicated. Like the confinement, the curfew is one of the strongest and most feared measures. The obligation to be at home at a specific time is far from popular in public opinion and the executive seems to favor the vaccination campaign. The reduction in the time to receive the booster dose, the increase in pressure on unvaccinated people or even the systematic reminder of barrier gestures go in this direction.
On the other hand, the health situation continues to deteriorate in the overseas territories. The prefect of Mayotte announced, Thursday, January 6, the reestablishment of a night curfew in the coming days, while the department is facing an unprecedented epidemic outbreak linked to the Omicron variant. In mid-December, the incidence rate was only 30 cases per 100,000 inhabitants. It had climbed to more than 100 at the beginning of the week, reaching 1,200 cases per 100,000 inhabitants on Friday, January 7, according to the prefect. In Guyana, the curfew is also making a comeback. On leaving a ministerial crisis unit, the prefect Thierry Queffelec decided, Thursday January 6, that the inhabitants of the six main cities of the territory had to submit, from Friday January 7, to a daily curfew of 20 30 hours to 5 hours. On Reunion Island, residents have had to deal since January 1 with a curfew, imposed by the prefect, with a share of the island population fully vaccinated estimated only at 62.8%, against 81.13% in National level.
With the vaccination campaign accelerating, the government should not impose restrictions on a largely vaccinated population. Especially since the government saw the National Assembly adopt at first reading the bill establishing the vaccination pass, Thursday, January 6, after a whole night of debate. With implementation scheduled for mid-January, the bill, which prohibits access to any unvaccinated person over the age of 12, bars, restaurants, leisure activities, cinemas and theaters , aims to increase the pressure on the last refractory to the vaccine. The President of the Republic was also very vindictive against them in the columns of the Parisian: “almost all people, more than 90%, adhered to it (to vaccination, editor’s note). a very small minority that is resistant. That one, how do you reduce it? We reduce it, sorry to say it, like that, by pissing it off even more. […] The unvaccinated, I really want to piss them off. And so, we will continue to do so, until the end. This is the strategy “.
The hypothesis of an implementation of exit restrictions from a certain time therefore remains possible in January and despite the opinion of the Sanitary Defense Council of January 5, the measure remains in abeyance. In France, a territorialized and then national curfew was introduced between October 2020 and June 2021. Its implementation was based on three criteria: an incidence rate greater than 250, an incidence rate in people over 65 years greater than 100 and an occupancy rate of resuscitation beds by Covid patients greater than 30%. Thresholds already crossed for several days in this 5th or 6th wave. According to data from Public Health France dated December 30, the national incidence rate exceeds 1,500 cases per 100,000 inhabitants and the number of intensive care beds occupied by patients affected by a severe form of the virus by 69%. Objectively, all the signals (compared to the criteria established by the authorities) are in the red.
But since then, the government has not only looked at these data to decide and has changed its tune over the months of the epidemic, including the opening of vaccination. And for a simple reason: even if the virus spreads more, it statistically causes fewer victims and serious forms, hospitals are more protected in proportion to cases of contamination. No more restrictions for everyone, the goal is to impose more constraints on the unvaccinated (10% of over 18 years). “Each week, with the level of knowledge that we have, we consider that this is important, in this case the vaccination, that can be discussed, but we do not choose it today”, had insisted on specify Olivier Véran at the end of December, leaving doubt about a possible new establishment.
The curfew, like confinement, is apparently one of the government’s latest weapons to stop a possible saturation of hospitals. Previously, the question of establishing new restrictions in places of assembly is still possible. After the gauges inside and outside, after wearing the extended mask, after the ban on alcohol consumption while standing or with zinc in bars and cafes, after the ban on eating in public places such as theaters, cinemas and sports facilities, it is indeed the closure of these places and businesses that can still be activated. While nightclubs are closed until the end of January, at least it is restaurants, bars, shops, places of culture and sport that seem in the hot seat.
Before curfew or confinement restrictions, the executive will probably intend to activate the levers that work to break an epidemic dynamic: limit the opportunities for mixing the population in closed places where the mask is only little or not worn, as in restaurants and bars.