LIVE – Towards a generalization of the FFP2 mask in France?

Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said he wanted to “annoy the virus and not annoy people”, expressing his disagreement with Emmanuel Macron’s controversial remarks on the unvaccinated, in an interview with the newspaper The evening published this Saturday.

“Clearly, this is not my vocabulary”, reacted the Belgian leader, asked about the statements of the French president who said he wanted to “piss off” the unvaccinated against the Covid-19.

Alexander De Croo warned against “a policy of division which would consist in going to annoy part of the population”.

“I think for my part that we must annoy the virus and not annoy people,” he continued, while acknowledging that, “to annoy the virus, you need as many people as possible to be vaccinated”.

“I still think that it is better to convince people than to force them”, added the Flemish liberal leader at the head of this country of 11.5 million inhabitants.

While the fifth wave of Covid-19 hits the hospital with full force, and in particular the emergencies, the operators of the Samu see the number of calls explode. For example, in the center of Pontoise, in the Val-d’Oise, 14 health professionals take turns night and day to meet ever-growing demands.

Since the holidays, and the explosion of daily cases of Covid-19 contamination, calls to Samu have doubled. Peaks of 1,000 daily calls were even recorded in the Val-d’Oise.

“We have seen a significant increase in calls for Covid. Often people are worried when they are positive. Fortunately, not everyone who calls us is in extremely serious condition, there are quite a few but we manage to absorb the flow. There are many positive people who are in relative urgency “, analyzes Flavien Cuny, supervisor of medical regulation assistants for Samu 95.

>> Find the full report from BFMTV.

The Mexican Ministry of Health announced that the barrier of 300,000 deaths linked to Covid-19 was crossed on Friday. With 168 new deaths recorded in the last 24 hours, the North American country now officially counts 300,101 deaths since March 2020.

This assessment could nevertheless be underestimated. The deaths associated with Covid stood at 451,864 until December 2021, according to the National Population Register.

Mexico is now the fifth most affected country in absolute terms in the world, in the midst of the pandemic rebounding across the globe. The country also recorded 28,023 new cases on Friday, the second highest figure since the start of the pandemic, for a total of more than 4 million.

In absolute terms, the United States is the most bereaved country with 836,241 dead, followed by Brazil (619,822), India (483,178) and Russia (314,604).

Asked this Saturday on BFMTV, epidemiologist Philippe Amouyel spoke in favor of a reorganized organization of the Covid-19 screening strategy, whose “legitimacy” is not to “question” according to the professor in public health at the Lille University Hospital.

These new methods must respond to the sharp increase in cases of contamination, having again exceeded the 300,000 positive tests mark this Friday, which further multiplies the number of contact cases.

“It’s an organizational problem. Perhaps we need to think about tests carried out more widely, to pulling, that is to say group together several samples and test them only once, use simpler collection tools for children “, lists the epidemiologist on our antenna.

As for a priority system to prioritize the reasons for testing, Philippe Amouyel sees it as “a measure of common sense”

“If we do not change the organization, we must prioritize. That is to say, say that what is most important is a positive person and a contact case. On the other hand, for the tests of comfort, it there are the self-tests, ”he emphasizes.

These new effective rules in pharmacies aim to relieve the congestion in pharmacies stormed by test requests, while the number of screening samples continues to climb.

This is the second time that the threshold of 300,000 cases has been crossed since the start of the epidemic. 328,214 new confirmed cases of Covid-19 were recorded this Friday, according to the latest data published by Public Health France.

Beyond the cases of contamination, the wave continues to rise in the hospital, but in a lesser proportion than the surge in the number of cases. 21,605 Covid patients are hospitalized (436 patients admitted in 24 hours), including 3,815 (+46 admissions) in critical care, or 46 more than Thursday.

230,000 first-time injections since Monday

Side vaccination, 230,000 people received their first injection since Monday, “a record since September”, according to the Minister of Health Olivier Véran, who spoke on Twitter.

Among these people, 20,000 children under the age of 12 have been administered a dose of vaccine, welcomed the Minister.

>> Find our full article.

SNCF announced this Friday to cut 10% of its TGV and 20% of Intercités from next week, explaining this measure by a drop in reservations due to the health crisis.

“Taking into account a observed drop in reservations of 30% since the beginning of the year – in particular during the week – the TGV transport plan will be adapted from next week and provided for 90% of the planned offer, and 80% for Intercités, “a spokesperson for SNCF Voyageurs told AFP.

The public railway company has however specified that all night trains will continue to run without a hitch, while “the adaptation of the offer will be stronger” for international TGVs, in particular for the cross-Channel Eurostar service “which will travel at less than 10% of the planned supply “.

Travelers whose trains are canceled will be contacted and will be able to change their ticket or be reimbursed, he assured.

>> Find our full article on this subject.

Between December 31 and January 6, nearly 9.5 million Covid-19 detection tests were carried out, according to figures provided this Friday by the Directorate General of Health (DGS). In detail, 2.86 million PCR tests and 6.65 million antigenic tests were identified.

In comparison with the previous week, already very important in volume of tests carried out, this figure denotes an increase of 25%, as the DGS underlines in a press release.

This increase particularly concerns children. The latter indeed represent one in four screening tests carried out during the last week. A direct effect of the health protocol in force in schools, moreover relaxed this Friday.

>> Find our full article.

A night curfew was introduced in Saint-Martin from this Friday evening and the health pass made compulsory to try to stem an “exponential increase in contamination” with Covid-19, announced the prefect Serge Gouteyron during a press conference.

The curfew, from midnight to 5 a.m., will be in effect for at least one month and the presentation of a health pass will now be compulsory in bars and restaurants, including on the terrace.

While thirteen cases of Covid-19 had been recorded over a week before Christmas, “it is very likely that we will end this week with more than 1,500 contaminations”, predicted to AFP Paul Guibert, territorial director of ARS Guadeloupe , on which Saint-Martin depends.

Since Monday, January 3, some 992 cases have already been identified.

This Wednesday, the government decreed a state of health emergency – which allows prefects to take measures to ban travel – in Saint-Martin but also in Guadeloupe, Guyana, Mayotte and Saint-Barthélemy where “under the effect of the Omicron variant “, the circulation of Covid-19 is experiencing a considerable increase.

Welcome to this live dedicated to monitoring the news of the Covid-19 epidemic of this Saturday, January 8, 2022.