France enters third wave of coronavirus pandemic: PM

PARIS - France has entered "a form of third wave (of the coronavirus pandemic) characterized by numerous virus variants", Prime Minister Jean Castex said on Tuesday, stressing that his government still considers vaccination a top priority of its strategy to stem the spread of the virus.

"The outbreak is going into extra time," he told a hearing at the National Assembly, the lower house of France's Parliament, which observed a moment of silence in memory of the 90,000-plus victims of the pandemic one year after the first national lockdown.

Mass vaccination, Castex said, "will allow us to get out of (the lockdown)."

The government has pledged to administer at least 10 million first vaccine doses by mid-April, 20 million by mid-May and 30 million by summer.

As of Tuesday, 5,295,735 people had received at least one vaccine dose, according to the health authorities.

Of the injected doses, 1.3 million were the AstraZeneca vaccines, whose use were suspended late Monday in France and in 20-odd other European countries following reports of side effects, including blood clots in patients.

Such a suspension would deal a very serious blow to the vaccination strategy in Europe, the French daily Le Monde said in an editorial on Tuesday.

"Faced with the saturation of intensive care services in Ile-de-France (the greater Paris region), only the acceleration of vaccination could give hope of avoiding a reconfinement. Any significant delay would render this expectation null and void," said the paper.

In Ile-de-France, the most populous region and the country's main economic hub with 12 million inhabitants, 5,907 COVID-19 patients were in hospital, including 1,177 in intensive care, according to the latest official data.

On Tuesday, the health authorities reported 29,975 new infections across the country, bringing the cumulative total to 4,108,108. The number of single-day deaths jumped to 408, taking the total to 91,170.

2021年3月16日，巴黎一家酒吧的关门被视为新冠肺炎应对法国冠状病毒疾病爆发的限制措施的一部分。[图片/机构]巴黎——法国总理让·卡斯特克斯(Jean Castex)周二表示，法国已进入“以众多病毒变异为特征的第三波(冠状病毒大流行)形式”，他强调，法国政府仍将疫苗接种视为遏制病毒传播战略的重中之重。“疫情的爆发将需要额外的时间，”他在法国议会下院国民议会的听证会上说。在第一次全国封锁一年后，国民议会默哀了9万多名大流行受害者。卡斯特说，大规模疫苗接种“将使我们脱离(封锁)。”政府承诺到4月中旬至少注射1000万剂疫苗，到5月中旬注射2000万剂，到夏季注射3000万剂。据卫生当局称，截至周二，5295735人至少接种了一剂疫苗。在注射的剂量中，有130万剂是阿斯利康疫苗，在报道了副作用(包括患者血栓)后，法国和20多个其他欧洲国家周一晚间暂停了对阿斯利康疫苗的使用。法国日报《世界报》周二在一篇社论中表示，这种暂停将对欧洲的疫苗接种战略造成非常严重的打击。“面对法兰西岛(大巴黎地区)重症监护服务的饱和，只有加快疫苗接种才能给避免再次确诊带来希望。任何重大的延误都将使这一期望无效，”该报称。根据最新的官方数据，在人口最多、拥有1200万居民的法国主要经济中心——法兰西岛，有5907名新冠肺炎患者住院，其中1177人在重症监护室。周二，卫生当局报告称，全国新增29，975例感染，使累计总数达到4，108，108例。单日死亡人数跃升至408人，总数达到91170人。