What is happening in France (and Italy)

[Northernsoullover]

Does anyone know why their cases are soaring? I know that areas of France and Italy are back in lockdown but does that mean they had limited restrictions before? I have googled but wondered if there were any resident mumsnetters who might be able to shed some light?

Not a resident but have a friend in Italy (near Naples). They had an incredibly strict lockdown last year, she couldn't leave her house even for exercise, essential shopping/work/medical care only. She very much feels that the current problems they're having are down to the UK variant in part but mainly the ridiculously slow rollout of vaccines there. She's in her sixties but doesn't expect to get the vaccine until autumn at the earliest.

High numbers of the Kent variant and SA one doing the rounds i think. Plus very behind on the vaccine programme.

Being idiotic with their vaccine programme. And I think they’ve had less strict restrictions than us post Christmas & now the Kent strain has hit them in France at least..

@Northernsoullover

Does anyone know why their cases are soaring? I know that areas of France and Italy are back in lockdown but does that mean they had limited restrictions before? I have googled but wondered if there were any resident mumsnetters who might be able to shed some light?

Overview;

Whole of France has been subject to an overnight curfew for several weeks.

As cases started to spike locally certain areas/town (specifically north east and extreme south east) became subject to increased local restrictions such as weekend lockdowns.

Much bigger area, including Paris and it's surrounds went into lockdown last week, most departments in France still only subject to 1900-0600 curfew.

Why?

1. Increased incidence of "foreign" variants.

1. IMHO the recently finished winter school holidays contributed to the recent rapid spread but at that time there wasn't the political will to restrict domestic travel.

1. Vaccination program slow in starting, really didn't help..but fortunately gaining momentum.

FWIW the main vaccine in use up until now has been the Pfizer product so the recent short halt in the use of AZ didn't completely bring things a halt.

I am so surprised to see how high their infection rates are. Given what we know now and the fact that our infection rate got so bad I thought that it might have served as a warning.

Chaos, born of incompetence and purile political game playing.

It'll be interesting to see what happens to our infection rate once restrictions are relaxed. That will be the real test of our vaccination programme.

I'm in Italy.
Conversely I'm in the region with the second lowest % of people vaccinated overall, yet the highest number of teachers vaccinated in the whole country.
The figures are about the same as before Christmas and we're back into red zone (kind of like tier 4 I guess, but nothing like the total lockdown from last year) I guess it's a combination of variants and slow administration of vaccines. We've been back into red zone (straight from yellow-virtually no restrictions) for a week and tbh, in my region at least nobody can quite understand why we're in red zone given the figures as I said (in this region) are about the same as November. 160 active cases at the moment in my city of about 60,000 people.
Theory is they've brought in the restrictions so that everything can be opened up after Easter.

@Northernsoullover

Does anyone know why their cases are soaring? I know that areas of France and Italy are back in lockdown but does that mean they had limited restrictions before? I have googled but wondered if there were any resident mumsnetters who might be able to shed some light?

Most of Europe has handled this virus badly - a problem of democracy perhaps? Politicians have always tried to compromise between virus eradication and economic damage - you'd have thought they'd have learned by now, but no, we all keep making the same mistakes.

The UK MAY get away with avoiding another wave if the vaccine rollout is fast enough, but it's touch and go and depends on how quickly we reopen everything.

When you think how much less sh*t we'd have had to deal with if we'd all just copied China in the first place.

@Northernsoullover

I am so surprised to see how high their infection rates are. Given what we know now and the fact that our infection rate got so bad I thought that it might have served as a warning.

Yes, that's what Italy said about the UK last March.

Ours has probably come down as schools were shut from December to March. I assume theirs were open? It was getting pretty bad here until schools were shut.

@StepOutOfLine yes! I couldn't believe how blasé the Government were. But we are all a year wiser now. I still think 21st June no restrictions is nonsensical.

I'm afraid I really can't take anyone who holds China as an example of how government's should behave seriously.

Not a resident but have friends in Italy and France who tell me that restrictions have not been ignored over the last few months, also schools have been open, people are meeting up, families are mixing, people meet and stand around outside bars and cafes wearing masks on their chins, some places have been covertly opening. It is not at all like first lockdown restrictions were very strict.

Restrictions have been ignored

Yes, that's what Italy said about the UK last March

Yep, I don't think the UK is in any position to take the highground on heading warnings from events abroad, that's for sure.

French schools stayed open, mandatory wearing of masks down to age 6'ish I think....

I still consider not restricting travel during the winter holidays was a major error, but the population do seem to think they have a devine right to head across the county for the ski slopes, even if the lifts are shut, and the politicians dare not intervene .... much the same happened last Autumn post the summer holidays, the politicians should have learnt from that mistake.

When you think how much less sht we'd have had to deal with if we'd all just copied China in the first place*

What elements of their handling of the pandemic do you most admire?

@SilverGlitterBaubles

Not a resident but have friends in Italy and France who tell me that restrictions have not been ignored over the last few months, also schools have been open, people are meeting up, families are mixing, people meet and stand around outside bars and cafes wearing masks on their chins, some places have been covertly opening. It is not at all like first lockdown restrictions were very strict.

Most of the country was in yellow zone until last week so everything you mention was fine to do. There have been no restrictions on visiting families (unlike the UK) unless in red zones (even then you can do it two adults at a time- kind of like the UK support bubbles) Masks outside haven't been obligatory ever, unless SD wasn't possible. So, yes, I'm sure your contacts in Italy were doing all those things. But that's because until last Monday, in most of Italy, they could.

@SilverGlitterBaubles

Not a resident but have friends in Italy and France who tell me that restrictions have not been ignored over the last few months, also schools have been open, people are meeting up, families are mixing, people meet and stand around outside bars and cafes wearing masks on their chins, some places have been covertly opening. It is not at all like first lockdown restrictions were very strict.

France was certainly more relaxed than the UK, for a long time just the curfew...and for a while that seemed to be working to a degree, because the daily case number plateaued at around 20k a day for quite some time..

Not great I know but it meant some form of socialising could go on, (bars and cafe were take away only BTW), and the numbers in reanimation (ITU) were stable. In short it appeared under control, without a lockdown abd I think the hope was the economy could be kept ticking over and the vaccination program would (finally) arrive over the hill and all would be well

..and then the "new" variants arrived, and ( obviously my pet theory) people scattered across the countryside on their winter hols.

In france and absolutely agree with everything notimagain said.

Apart from the first lockdown and a smaller less severe lockdown before christmas restrictions here are generally much lighter.

My kids haven't had a single day off school since they went back last june and generally shops and workplaces are open. We can meet friends (6 adult limit) and we have had a 6pm curfew for a while.

No restaurants, bars, cinema, theatre etc and indoor sports but a lot of indoor sports have adapted and moved outside in my region (passed an aerobics class in the gym car park this morning) and restaurants doing take aways so life hasn't been too restricted.

For a while cases plateaued around the 20,000 a day mark which I suppose the government thought was manageable in terms of health care but variants are on the rise now so no choice but to toughen restrictions.

It's just a case of swings and roundabouts, France has been looking on in horror at the soaring cases and deaths in the UK over the last few months as we have generally enjoyed a more normal life. Now the UK is doing better and things here are worse. That's the nature of life now as governments do their best to balance virus and economy.

I currently live in France. We have been under really annoying but hard to consider as effective restrictions since the last week of October last year. Mainly there has been a 6pm curfew meaning that everything closes at 6pm including grocery shops and everyone not still working should be home and staying there until 6am the next day. All restaurants, bars and cafes have also been closed since then and since early Jan this year, lots of non essential larger retail stores and shopping centres have also been closed. Schools have stayed open the whole time and there was no restriction on movement over the 2 week winter school holidays end of feb/early March when I am sure the virus had endless opportunity to spread.

Ignoring the slow vaccine rollout and very rocky uptake figures, in general, there is nowhere near the adherence to indoor mixing recommendations as there is in the uk. Family and friends still regularly meet up, inside or out, and it is considered a step too far for the french government to legally intervene in the freedom of choosing what goes on inside your own home. Working from home is not the norm and still not allowed even by many french companies. For me there is a feeling that the rules are just lip service and that actually people just want to get on with life and live with the small risk of covid. There is certainly not the same level of fear or daily obsession with covid on tv or in the newspapers like there is in the uk.

But also the culture is just different and I think that does play a part. For example, I went into a large pharmacy in the busy business district near me last week and it was so busy I couldn’t navigate around the aisles properly and eventually gave up and battled my way through the crowd that was the queue at the tills to the exit. Yes everyone has masks on but there is little to no social distancing in more crowded areas.

The government blame the uk variant but it’s obvious to everyone that case numbers had been holding stable since the beginning of last December and only started to rise as the school holidays started to end and pupils returned to school.

These latest restrictions are ridiculous and actually all they’ve really added is the closure of a few more non essential shops and a limit on travelling outside of affected regions. Some 16-22 year old education facilities have returned to 50/50 attendance but otherwise it’s just the return of the incredibly annoying and pointless permission forms everytime you want to go out the house.

The french are very much banking on the warmer weather helping to reduce cases so let’s hope it arrives soon!

@Pyewackect

Chaos, born of incompetence and purile political game playing.

Yeah, and with less deaths per capita than the U.K.

Incompetence vs more incompetence.

@Sunshinegirl82

I'm afraid I really can't take anyone who holds China as an example of how government's should behave seriously.

So because they do some other stuff that's questionable, lessons can't be learned from the stuff they get right?

Or perhaps you think they haven't got it right - that they would have been a MUCH better government if they'd followed OUR example...

UK 150k deaths pop 67 million
China pop 1.4 billion so that would be 3.1 million deaths instead of 4636.

Gosh what an evil regime they are letting just over 3 million people live unnecessarily when they could have easily let them die AND wrecked their economy at the same time AND kept their entire population under severe restrictions for about 18 months. They must be absolutely kicking themselves for taking the approach they did.

God save the UK, land of the free eh!

@MaxNormal

When you think how much less sht we'd have had to deal with if we'd all just copied China in the first place*

What elements of their handling of the pandemic do you most admire?

As someone who started following it closely from just after NY, ALL OF IT lol.

Let's face it, the UK had well over 2 months to prepare and we didn't even come close to dealing with it as well.

They recognised immediately that total containment was the only sensible recourse, mobilised incredible amounts of manpower and equipment to support Wuhan, delivered a much shorter lockdown than the UK and pretty much totally eradicated the virus - since then aside from a couple of minor outbreaks quickly dealt with, the country has been virus free.

The UK had the opportunity to achieve the same without even needing a lockdown due to forewarning, but nope - we got it wrong and then repeated ALL the same mistakes 6 months later.

Hilarious that the Brits on here are suggesting the French didn’t adhere to the rules re indoor mixing, and even funnier that the French believe the Brits did comply to it.