Invited on Franceinfo on Thursday October 29, Health Minister Olivier Véran said “there are probably a million” sick French due to coronavirus, as France is about to go into lockdown again for at least 4 weeks, until December 1.
There are “40,000 to 50,000 diagnoses every day and we think we have one in two, so, there are probably a million French who are potentially carrying the virus. At the pace things go, with lockdown, we hope we will reduce the number of new contaminations” the Health Minister said.
“What we want is to make a first step in 15 days, not to stop the lockdown, but to see if it is necessary to make extra measures in the event the situation worsens, and why not, perhaps, lighter measures in some sectors in the event the situation got better” he said.
He insisted on the fact that “two weeks are too short, obviously. After a month, we will see. The goal is to return to an acceptable epidemic level with a few thousands diagnoses per day, instead of the 40 to 50,000 we are having today”.