Few hours ago, Monsieur le President MARCON announces strict new coronavirus lockdown measures.
Emmanuel Macron has announced strict new month-long measures including closing schools for three weeks, abandoning his efforts to keep France out of a third coronavirus lockdown.
The French president had ignored the pleas of his scientific advisors to close up the country in January but the spread of the contagious British variant and spiking infections forced him into a U-turn.
"We will lose control if we do not move now," he said in a televised address.
Non-essential shops will be closed and travel more than 10km from home is forbidden, unless there is a good reason. Travel between French regions is banned from April 5. People must work from home if they can and a 7pm curfew will stay in place, as Mr Macron extendedmeasures in some French regions to the whole country.
Mr Macron had hoped to pursue a “third way” of fighting coronavirus without ordering people to stay at home and keeping the economy as open as possible.
On Wednesday night, in a primetime television address, Mr Macron defended his decision to keep France out of lockdown. He insisted that every day the country was open was a day gained in the fightback for economic recovery.
He said that unlike Germany or Italy, which were in their fourth lockdowns, France had enjoyed “precious days of freedom”.
"We have opted since the beginning of 2021 for a response that aimed to curb the epidemic without locking down," Mr Macron said.
“We have won precious days of freedom, weeks of education for our children, without ever losing control of the epidemic. I think it was the right thing to do."
France’s slow vaccination campaign and his refusal to lockdown earlier have put the French president under pressure from politicians and medical experts.
“We could have done better, we have made some mistakes, all of this is true," he said.
Thank God I, my family and friends do not live on that side of the world....that's all I can say!
Belgium with a total population of 11.6 million people has in the last 24 hours had 5,611 new Covid-19 cases reported and 56 new deaths for the day. They currently have 802,327 active cases and 738 in serious to critical condition.
Compare that with Australia with its 26 million people with 2 new cases in the past 24 hours not one case anywhere in the country in serious to critical condition, and only 1 death in the past 5 months.
There is no way our court system here would override public safety and compel this country to ignore Covid-19 putting many thousands (possibly hundreds of thousands) of our citizens at risk.
America trusted the Trump line and look what happened, 31.1 million of them have become infected and 565,256 of them have died.
I just don't know what needs to happen to get the bulk of this planet to take this pandemic seriously.
As I said I am so thankful I live in a country where some sanity prevails.
"Belgium must lift all Covid 19 Measures within 30 days Brussels Court Rules Verlinden Human Rights ministerial decree Civil Safety Act Pandemic Law Coronavirus"!
Is there anyone out there who will hazard a guess as to why the government of Western Australia brought down a surplus budget of $2.7 Billion dollars for this financial year......the only government on earth able to achieve that during this pandemic.
They say citizens get the government they deserve, but surely the citizens of Belgium deserve better than this!
Cheers........Rob
We are on the same page Fred, but you don't keep an economy running in the midst of a pandemic by trying to keep it running. All you are doing is dragging out the solution, which in the long term will hurt the economy even more!
The only sensible option is to alleviate the problem as quickly as possible...... and then get the economy running again.
Each state here has had Covid escape into the community at times. Last week it was Brisbane's turn in Queensland. A Cluster of 17 cases was uncovered in Brisbane and the entire greater Brisbane area (2.4 million people) was put into immediate total lock-down for three days.
That was Monday last week, contact tracers and QR codes isolated that cluster and all those who came into contact with it from the community, and this week the whole country is back to business again. Here is yesterdays figures.
Last night (Good Friday) 40,000 fans attended a football match here at the Adelaide oval, they all paid to attend, they all ate or drank something, staff got employed, the wheels of business went around. Adelaide dining is running at full capacity, there is no compulsion to wear masks in public.
The Adelaide 'Fringe' festival which runs from 19th Feb to 21st March sold $16.4 million worth of tickets with more than 500,000 people going though the gates for the month.
Today more than 30,000 people are attending a horse racing event at Oakbank in the Adelaide Hills not far from where I live.....no masks, no restrictions. All over Australia life is virtually normal. Sydney's 'Lyrics' stage theatre last week opened the live stage production of the American stage show 'Hamilton' to packed houses.
At times things do get cancelled or postponed due to Covid but these are isolated events and are not having a major effect on the economy
Business is back to usual here Fred because the authorities will take what ever steps are required to stop COVID-19 getting into the community, our economy is firm and Australia still has its AAA credit rating with S&P and 'Moody's'
The country is still taking our cap of 4,000 returning nationals per week but they go into immediate quarantine and have no effect on the community. It is these returning expats who are bringing the virus with them at a rate of about 100 per week....but they are being suitably controlled and isolated.
We just need the rest of the world to catch up Fred and that can't happen fast enough for us.
Cheers........Rob
