Are new restrictions to be made in Île-de-France? Will the Île-de-France area be placed in lockdown again? So far, these questions remain without an answer, but some specialists are wondering why Île-de-France is not subject to the same restrictions as Pas-de-Calais, as health evacuations already took place in the area.
Asked about that matter on March 14 on Twitch, the French Prime Minister said new decisions might be made for this territory. Castex spoke about a criterion to put Paris and other Île-de-France departments in lockdown or not, namely an incidence rate set at 400 for 100,000 inhabitants. “We initiated [weekend lockdown] in these departments when the incidence rate was 400 for 100,000 inhabitants. It’s still under” in Île-de-France, the chief of the executive explained. As long as the threshold has not been reached, “the same measures cannot be made”, he added.
This criterion has never been explained until then. Yet, during the March 4’s press brief, the PM said that two French departments were “now exceeding the threshold of 400 for 100,000”. At the end of the interview on Twitch, Matignon services yet intended to give further details about the incidence rate raised by Castex and said it was more “a strong vigilance point” than a determining threshold.
But what is Île-de-France’s exact incidence rate? As of March 11, it reached 391 for 100,000 inhabitants, very close to 400, then. Some departments even exceeded the limit like Seine-Saint-Denis with 486, Val-d’Oise with 440, Val-de-Marne with 428. In Paris, the incidence rate reached 380 for 100,000 inhabitants, according to the latest data reported by Santé Publique France.
In “Île-de-France, the big difficulty compared with Pas-de-Calais is that we cannot take one department separately, because there is a lot of population flow, we must consider the region as a whole”, the Prime Minister explained this Sunday on Twitch.
So, what will the French Prime Minister and his government decide? More to come in a few days. For the record, Jean Castex is to address the country’s health situation this Tuesday in an interview on BFMTV.
