French health chiefs rule out new crackdown to fight coronavirus pandemic

French health chiefs have ruled out a tougher package of restrictions to stem the spread of the coronavirus pandemic until at least after the school holidays.

Top ministers and leading doctors who form the defence council met on Wednesday night to assess the latest data on the pandemic that has killed nearly 83,000 people in France since January 2020.

Government spokesman Gabriel Attal emerged from the session and reiterated the call to obey the health guidelines outlined by Emmanuel Macron's administration since the start of the crisis last year.

He also calmed fears about further limits on movement since the imposition of a nationwide curfew between 6pm and 6am on 16 January.

"The situation is so fragile that anything can tip it over," Attal said. ”It would not be reasonable to relax our efforts or to cry victory. We will need to take quick, proportionate measures, adapted to the situation".

Holidays
Schools in France's three holiday regions are out until 8 March and it is understood there are no plans to alter the policy of keeping pupils in classrooms.

On Wednesday night, France's public health service reported just over 25,000 new cases of the coronavirus and 310 deaths.

And even though hospital occupancy rates have dropped slightly, Attal added: “The pressure on hospitals, especially in intensive care units, remains very high.”

Several regions in eastern France have areas where the coronavirus patients occupy more than 70 percent of the beds in hospital intensive care units.

Variants
In Provence-Alpes-Côte-d'Azur, the region encompassing Nice and the French Riviera, Covid patients fill 97 percent of the total capacity in the hospitals.

The emergence of new variants also continues to worry health chiefs, with new strains including the UK, South African and Brazilian variants now accounting for 25 percent of all cases in France.

The Moselle region in eastern France has reported 300 cases of new variants within a week, which officials say cannot be linked to travel or a single cluster.

Health chiefs say they will monitor statistics to see if travel and family visits over the school holidays have lead to a spike in cases.