France PM: Paris will lockdown if incidence rate reaches 400

Prime Minister Jean Castex said yesterday that Ile-de-France could go into lockdown if the incidence rate reaches 400.

The incidence rate is the number of cases per 100,000 inhabitants in the past seven days.

Mr Castex said, in an interview on online platform Twitch, weekend confinements had been introduced in other departments “where the rate of incidence was at 400 per 100,000 inhabitants”, but not in Ile-de-France as the rate had stayed below this threshold.

Rate approaching limit in French capital

The latest figures from March 14 back this up: in Pas-de-Calais the incidence rate is 422, and in Alpes-Maritimes it is 468.

Both departments have seen weekend confinement measures introduced in the past few weeks.

In Ile-de-France the incidence rate for the region is currently 391 - even though in four out of the region's eight departments the rate is actually 400 or over.

It is 487 in Seine-Saint Denis, 440 in Val-d’Oise, 428 in Val-de-Marne and 401 in Seine-et-Marne.

But the prime minister said it was not possible to confine some departments in Ile-de-France and not others.

“There is a lot of movement of people meaning we have to consider the region as a whole,” he said.

Previous confinements based on hospitalisations

This is the first time an incidence rate of 400 has been mentioned as a threshold for justifying confinement measures.

One of the criteria for being placed on “heightened alert” - as 23 departments currently are – is an incidence rate higher than 250.

And previous weekend confinements have been justified by looking at patient numbers in intensive care, which are also worsening in Ile-de-France.

There are now more than 1,000 patients in intensive care in the region, and 99% of beds available before the health crisis are in use.

Patients evacuated to other regions

Government spokesperson Gabriel Attal said that in the coming week “probably dozens of patients would be evacuated from Ile-de-France to other regions”.

He said six patients would be evacuated by aircraft every day.

By the end of the week TGV trains would be “medicalised” in order to transport larger numbers of patients.

He added that the current situation was “tense and worrying” as “every bed counts” in the French capital.

Confinement plans not denied

This comes as authorities seem less resistant to the idea of confinement in Ile-de-France than in previous weeks.

The prime minister said that a weekend confinement would be “very hard” but added that the measure could be taken “after we have tried everything else, which is what we are doing now”.

Regional President of Ile-de-France Valérie Pécresse said on news channel France 2 this morning that when it came to confinement measures, Ile-de-France had been given a “suspended sentence”.

She said in the capital, “the majority of cases are the UK variant, which is not only more contagious but also more deadly,” adding that intensive care units were “saturated”.

Ms Pécresse said all people in Ile-de-France who were able should “stay at home and work from home” this week.

“We cannot find ourselves in a situation where people in Ile-de-France are being refused admission to intensive care,” she added.

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