French President Emmanuel Macron announces COVID-19 restrictions to last till December

French President Emmanuel Macron announced at a press conference on Friday, October 23 that COVID-19 restrictions will remain in force until December at least. As per reports, the French leader also added that it is not possible to eradicate the COVID-19 virus by chance or through ‘herd immunity’.

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France battling 2nd wave of COVID-19

During the press conference, the French President said, "We will be accessing the effectiveness of the made decisions ... At least until the beginning of December, everything that was announced by the government will remain in place. These measures -- I can say this to your for sure -- will not be reduced and they may even be reinforced if we find them not effective enough."

Macron went on to add that based on scientific data, people will have to learn to with COVID-19 until the summer of 2021 in the best-case scenario. At present, France is experiencing a sharp increase in new COVID-19 cases and recently became the second country in Europe to cross 1 million confirmed COVID-19 cases after Spain.

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Experts have speculated that the real number of people infected in France is higher than official figures due to the absence of testing during the early stages and the presence of asymptomatic cases. About 42 percent of all the ICU beds in France are currently occupied while that percentage rises up to 64 percent for the French capital of Paris, as per reports.

As per the John Hopkins coronavirus resource centre, France has reported over 30,000 deaths due to the virus. The COVID-19 pandemic which saw its first outbreak in a wet market in Wuhan, China last year has now spread all across the world. The virus, named COVID-19 by the World Health Organisation, has infected over 42 million people worldwide with the global death toll crossing 1,000,000.

(With ANI inputs, Image AP)

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