COVID-19 pandemic in France
The COVID-19 pandemic in France has resulted in 38,997,490[1] confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 168,091[1] deaths.
The virus was confirmed to have reached France on 24 January 2020, when the first COVID-19 case in both Europe and France was identified in Bordeaux. The first five confirmed cases were all individuals who had recently arrived from China.[2][3] A Chinese tourist who was admitted to hospital in Paris on 28 January 2020, died on 14 February 2020, becoming the first known COVID-19 fatality outside Asia as well as the first in France.[4][5][6][7] A key event in the spread of the disease across metropolitan France as well as its overseas territories was the annual assembly of the Christian Open Door Church between 17 and 24 February 2020 in Mulhouse which was attended by about 2,500 people, at least half of whom are believed to have contracted the virus.[8][9] On 4 May 2020, retroactive testing of samples in one French hospital showed that a patient was probably already infected with the virus on 27 December 2019, almost a month before the first officially confirmed case.[10][11]
The first lockdown period began on 17 March 2020 and ended on 11 May 2020.[12] On 2 May 2020, Health Minister Olivier Véran announced that the government would seek to extend the health emergency period until 24 July 2020.[13] Several mayors opposed the 11 May 2020 lifting of the lockdown, which had been announced by the president a few weeks earlier in a televised address to the nation,[12] saying it was premature. Véran's bill was discussed in Senate on 4 May 2020.[14]
From August 2020, there was an increase in the rate of infection and on 10 October 2020, France set a record number of new infections in a 24-hour period in Europe with 26,896 recorded. The increase caused France to enter a second nationwide lockdown on 28 October 2020. On 15 October 2020, police raided the homes and offices of key government officials, including Véran and Philippe, in a criminal negligence probe opened by the Cour de Justice de la République.[15] According to a team of French epidemiologists, under 5% of the total population of France, or around 2.8 million people, may have been infected with COVID-19. This was believed to have been nearly twice as high in the Île-de-France and Alsace regions.[16]
On 31 March 2021, Macron announced a third national lockdown which commenced on 3 April 2021 and which was mandated for all of April 2021; measures included the closure of non-essential shops, the suspension of school attendance, a ban on domestic travel and a nationwide curfew from 7pm-6am.
In February 2022, it was reported that no tests are required to enter the country, and children under the age of 12 are free from vaccination requirements.[17]
Background
The pandemic occurred following a series of national protests, which were followed by a strike against pension reform which had been proposed by President Emmanuel Macron in his election manifesto.[18][19] The pension reform strike was the longest strike in modern French history.[20] In President Emmanuel Macron's second address to the nation on the pandemic on 16 March 2020, he announced the suspension of all reforms, notably those of pensions.[21]
On 12 January 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed that a novel coronavirus was the cause of a respiratory illness in a cluster of people in Wuhan, Hubei, China, who had initially come to the attention of the WHO on 31 December 2019.[22][23] On 21 January 2020, Agnès Buzyn, Minister of Solidarity and Health declared that "The risk of introduction into France is low but it cannot be excluded".[24]
Situation by region
Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes
On 25 February 2020, a man from La Balme-de-Sillingy, who had returned from Italy, was declared infected and hospitalised in Annecy. He had been asymptomatic the previous evening, and so was the trigger for a cluster in Haute-Savoie.[148][149] One day later his wife was hospitalised.[56] On 27 February, a friend and his daughter followed him into the hospital.[150] On 2 March 2020, 26 people were COVID-19 positive in Haute-Savoie. The hospital in Annecy being saturated, a case was transferred to Chambéry.[151] François Daviet, the mayor of La Balme-de-Sillingy was also hospitalised.[152]
On 27 February 2020, a man from Francheville was admitted to a Lyon hospital and tested positive for coronavirus.[153] Three new cases were reported in the city of Lyon on 1 March.[152]
A couple from Divonne-les-Bains were infected after a journey in Italy and hospitalised in neighbouring Switzerland on 29 February 2020.[154][155] On the same day, two other men from Ferney-Voltaire, one French national who works in Switzerland and one Italian national, were also hospitalised in the Helvetic Country.[156]
On 2 March 2020, an 89-year-old woman from Nyons was treated at Valréas hospital in the Enclave of the Popes in Vaucluse and tested COVID-19 positive.[157] On the same day there were four new cases in Haute-Savoie.[158]
Burgundy-Franche-Comté
On 2 March 2020, 10 cases were reported at the Dijon hospital.[159] The first wave was reported on 27 February with cases related to the Oise cluster[160][161] who subsequently infected their relatives. Five new cases of COVID-19 were confirmed on 3 March. The 15 cases in the region received care at Dijon CHU. Four cases in Côte-d'Or had been in contact with someone who was already hospitalised, while another case in Saône-et-Loire was in Italy the previous week.[162]
Brittany
On 2 March 2020, 19 cases were reported in Brittany.[163] Two were in the western city of Brest, an elderly man from Plougonvelin, returning from a trip from Egypt[164][165] and his wife.[166] There were also four cases in the regional capital Rennes, a firefighter and his wife, and two people who had returned from Veneto.[163] 13 others cases were reported in Morbihan, around a cluster of 6 in Crac'h, 3 in Auray, 3 in Carnac and 1 in Saint-Philibert.[163]
Also on 2 March 2020, the fourth death in France, and the first one in Brittany occurred, a 92-year-old man, who had been hospitalised in Vannes.[167][168]
As of 29 March 2020, 962 cases had been reported as follows : 208 in Ille-et-Vilaine, 230 in Finistère, 313 in Morbihan and 107 in Côtes d'Armor.[169]
Grand Est
On 26 February 2020, a 36-year-old man who had made repeated trips to the Italian region of Lombardy was hospitalised in Strasbourg but didn't have severe symptoms.[61][59]
On 2 March 2020, it was announced that ten more people tested positive in the Grand Est, eight hospitalised in Strasbourg and three in Nancy. In Alsace, a Molsheim couple was hospitalised. The man had returned from Italy and was hospitalised first, followed by his wife. Four members of a family from Hésingue, a 27-year-old mother and her two children aged five and one, as well as one of the grandfathers, a 57-year-old man, were infected. Two others cases identified in the Bas-Rhin, a 49-year-old man and his 14-year-old son, had been in contact with a person from the Oise hospitalised in Amiens.[170] Three family members were hospitalised in Nancy, a father and his son, aged 50 and 23, and the girl-friend of the 50-year-old patient, all from the department of Aisne.[171]
Hauts-de-France
As of 2 March 2020, 67 people[172] were infected by COVID-19 in the Hauts-de-France region. This figure, the highest in France, was linked to a major cluster originating in the city of Creil, in the Oise, whose source remains unknown. The five departments of Hauts-de-France now each had at least one proven case of people infected by the coronavirus. In Aisne and Pas-de-Calais, spared by the epidemic until 1 March, the authorities confirmed the presence of patients with COVID-19, except the Nord where hospitalisations without local infections had taken place. Some days before, on 26 February, a man died overnight after being rushed to a Paris hospital from Creil where he was hospitalised for 6 days in ICU in serious condition, bringing the total death toll in the country to two at that time.[61][60] On 2 March 2020, it was announced the second death in Hauts-de-France and the third at the national level, a woman of 89 "diagnosed post-mortem" at the hospital of Compiègne. She had other serious pre-existing conditions.[172]
Île-de-France
On 25 February 2020, a young woman returned from China was hospitalised in the Bichat–Claude Bernard Hospital, Paris but showed signs of recovery and was out of hospital on 26 February 2020.[148][173][49]
On 28 February 2020, an infected person from the Val-d'Oise, returning from Italy was hospitalised in Bichat–Claude Bernard Hospital, Paris. He was working for a contractor of Charles de Gaulle Airport.[174][175] On the same day, Hôpital Tenon, which had received a patient from the Oise before he had been diagnosed, announced that it had been directly affected by the coronavirus with three infected medical personnel.[176]
Two cases of Coronavirus had been identified in Seine-Saint-Denis in Montreuil in the same family, a father and his child, on 2 March 2020.[177]
Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, a substantial International Women's Day march occurred in Paris on 8 March 2020.[178]
Hydroxychloroquine controversy
On 17 March 2020, Didier Raoult of the Mediterranean infectious and tropical disease institute in Marseille and member of the scientific council advising the government announced in a YouTube video entitled "Coronavirus: endgame!" that a trial by his team involving 24 patients supported the claim that hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin were effective in treating COVID-19.[256][257][258] The design of the study as well as its conclusions are controversial and generally viewed as flawed and inconclusive.[259][258] Raoult has nevertheless offered testing of those with symptoms at his institute and prescribed hydroxychloroquine for those who tested positive.[259] The French Health Minister, Olivier Véran, announced that "new tests will now go ahead to evaluate the results of Raoult, to independently replicate the trials and ensure the findings are scientifically robust, before any possible decision might be made to roll any treatment out to the wider public".[260][261]
On 30 March 2020, hospitals reported that there had been two dozen cases with three deaths of individuals who were suspected of self-medication with Plaquenil – a brand name for hydroxychloroquine. Drug safety agency (ANSM) warned against potentially fatal side effects, notably cardiac arrhythmia and heart attack. The agency banned its use, even with prescriptions, outside of hospitals, and in clinical trials, while stepping up its surveillance.[262]
Raoult later resigned from the committee, and defended chloroquine as a drug that has been safely used for 80 years.[94]
On 3 December 2021, the Order of Physicians in France gave Raoult a blame for promoting hydroxychloroquine "without scientific data".[263]
Cooperation with neighbouring states
On 29 February 2020, Monaco announced the first COVID-19 case, a man who was admitted to the Princess Grace Hospital Centre, then transferred to Nice University Hospital in France.[196] Also on 29 February 2020, three French nationals and one Italian resident of Ain were being hospitalised in Lausanne or other places in Switzerland.[265]
On 22 March 2020, Switzerland announced that three hospitals near the Alsace region had agreed to take in any French-based patients after Alsace officials made a request for assistance.[266] Patients from Grand Est were also taken into hospitals in Baden-Württemberg, Rhineland-Palatinate, Saarland, and Hesse in Germany.
Up to 1 April 2020 over 100 COVID-19 patients from Alsace had been transferred for treatment to Germany, Luxembourg, and Switzerland.[267]