New Delhi: Health Minister Olivier Veran said on Wednesday that France is at the beginning of the fifth wave of a COVID-19 pandemic.
“While many neighboring countries are already in the fifth wave of the Covid pandemic, what we are experiencing in France clearly looks like the beginning of the fifth wave,” Veran told TF1 television, Reuters reported. Adding movement was accelerating.
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According to the report, the health ministry on Wednesday registered 11,883 new cases, taking the record for the second consecutive day to over 10,000 new cases. New cases have seen a week-on-week increase in double digits since mid-October.
Call for Vaccination
French President Emmanuel Macron announced the postponement of a pre-determined easing of anti-Covid measures as France goes through a fifth wave of the pandemic.
“We are not with the pandemic yet,” he warned in his address to the nation. Macron said that more attention should be paid to all the barrier gestures protecting people from Kovid-19 and other infectious winter diseases, Xinhua news agency reported.
He said that the control of health passes would also be strengthened in the respective establishments including airports, seaports and train stations.
People over the age of 65 and the most vulnerable will have to take a booster dose to have their Health Pass valid from December 15, 2021.
Since the start of the COVID-19 vaccination campaign in December 2020, France has injected more than 100 million doses in ten months, and 51 million French are now fully immunised, he said. Macron urged people to get a booster shot six months after the vaccine.
“The solution to this weakened immunity is the injection of an additional dose of the vaccine, the booster shot,” he said.
He also called for the 6 million non-vaccinated people to be vaccinated in order to be protected and “be able to live normally.”
“We have done what is necessary to protect ourselves, if each of us does our part then we can continue to keep the situation under control,” he said.
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