Why is the UK getting more cases than France?

[TheYearOfSmallThings]

The UK started vaccinating before France, and there has been a lot of vaccine resistance in France. But their Delta wave was smaller, and continues to decline after peaking, whereas the UK's has plateaued. Life is fairly normal in both countries now.

I'm sure there is an explanation for this that I'm missing, and I'm hoping this board is the place to find it?

Most tourist areas in France will not let you enter the town centre without a mask. On market day its strictly policed.
Also from October 20 until April 21 all restaurants and bars were closed.
Remember too France is much bigger than the UK with a similar population. Many people live rurally.

Just to add re last post I think we realised how bad closing schools to most was after summer and if Alpha hadn’t turned up we would have stayed open - the R was under 1 in Nov

@Geamhradh

So is *@DobbyTheHouseElk correct or @witheringrowan*?

Presumably the walk in tests are LFTs?

The tent nearest me offered both. I think it's LFT for the passe sanitaire, but it's administered by a trained tester, and PCR still freely available it you are travelling for example. People without French health insurance have to pay though, about 30 Euros.

UK home testing depends on an untrained individual doing it themselves, and then entering the correct result on the system. When negative results were required for e.g. sporting events in the UK earlier in the summer it was so full of holes - you could easily not even do the test, just use the code to register on the website and say it was negative, then you have the pass and freedom to do as you please!

I have a friend who lives in France and loves to UK bash. She told me they don’t use LFT at all because they “don’t work”.

I've just ordered a box of 50 X ffp2 from my local pharmacy for €4. The schools are talking about maybe making ffp2 compulsory instead of medical so I thought I'd get prepared!

£9.99 for 5 single use FFP2 masks on Boots, no way am I paying that! For people to use them then the cost would have to fall massively as a previous poster in had in their country.

@DobbyTheHouseElk

I have a friend who lives in France and loves to UK bash. She told me they don’t use LFT at all because they “don’t work”.

Ah. OK Well, it's true that iirc up to 50% can be false negative, but I thought you meant the French govt had not mandated them at all.

Vaccine refusal was much higher in France before they introduced the rules about access to cafes and travel etc

DH is French and most of his family there didn't want the vaccine, they only got it because they had to really

I agree that consistency has helped a lot, not this constant back and forth in the UK between throwing everything open and hard lockdowns

Oh, it's very simple.

France:

Had a real lockdown.
Is limiting access to non-essential services.
Has kept masks and SD.

We're just letting it rip.

I can see the argument re delta spread in early summer, but looking it up, it seems to be well established in both France and the UK now that we are in September, so presumably it wouldn't still be the cause of a significant difference in infection patterns between the 2 countries?

Spain, France and Italy had big peaks as we did, didn’t they?

Germany would be one to look at for lower more even rates I think

But taking France peak Nov and April maybe there is something in this avoid winter period

How are France limited access to non-essential services @NannyAndJohn? Do you mean the introduction of Covid passports? I've had a look at the French government website and that's all I can see. There's other things that will be impossible to police such as airing rooms 3 times a day and hand washing/using sanitiser, but I can't see anything about limiting non essential services.

I'm late to the party on this thread but the only thing I can add is one major difference between the UK and France is that the French govt. never banned household mixing like we did in the UK. This means family lunches/friends round for dinner have continued throughout.

I assume they considered it govt. over reach to tell people who they could and couldn't have in their own home.

@Covidforums

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Re. not banning family mixing in France, they did ban it indirectly during lockdown and curfew as you couldn’t leave the house for anything other than an approved reason, and visiting people wasn’t one of the reasons. There was 135€ fine if you were stopped by the police.

@NoraLuka

Re. not banning family mixing in France, they did ban it indirectly during lockdown and curfew as you couldn’t leave the house for anything other than an approved reason, and visiting people wasn’t one of the reasons. There was 135€ fine if you were stopped by the police.

Fair enough, but according to family who live more rurally that was probably more of a thing in the towns where it could be policed.

@PinkSparklyPussyCat

How are France limited access to non-essential services *@NannyAndJohn*? Do you mean the introduction of Covid passports? I've had a look at the French government website and that's all I can see. There's other things that will be impossible to police such as airing rooms 3 times a day and hand washing/using sanitiser, but I can't see anything about limiting non essential services.

Yes, I mean the passports.

The lunatic deniers who refuse both the vaccine and a test will be barred, and rightly so. Safer for everyone.

@ACreakingGateNeverStops yes that's probably true, I live rurally in France and there are people who socialised throughout but I don't think they were the majority (at least amongst my friends/acquaintances!). I don't think there were ever many police checks around here, there were definitely more in the larger towns.

Live in France and I'm a teacher and have 4 teens.

The kids regularly test before any social gathering particularly if there are any vulnerable others.

All over 12 are vaccinated. Schools are vaccinating in schools.

Mask wearing by all students of all ages. Mask wearing compulsory for all no exemptions.

I was in the UK for 2 weeks with 2 of the teens. I felt unsafe in a way I don't in France. Beautician not wearing a mask for eye shaping. Not expecting my DD to wear one either.

Only 50% of people on trains with masks. No masks outside.

One DD was doing a course in London. 3/5 of the girls in her group got Covid.

We tested before we saw new people (so daily sometimes) because we absolutely do not want to pass it on.

Lots of 3rd vaccines happening here now.

That’s interesting @Wallywobbles are you doing booster jabs now?

@Delatron

They’ve never had the peaks that we had though. Even when we did a longer, harder lockdown. Did they even lockdown in Jan-March when we did? I think they just had a curfew?

It’s quite perplexing. The mask wearing/vaccine passport thing is recent.
Doesn’t explain the rest of the year.

I guess the Delta variant hit us harder.

France was stricter with mask wearing right from the start and wearing masks indoors has been required right from March 2020 or thereabouts and still is now, it hasn't changed, masks outdoors were not required from I think June but lots of people still wear them, they are still required outdoors for gatherings, like markets etc.

You could not attend any public social thing from zoos to restaurants from July without being double vaccinated or having a negative test in previous 48 hours, which were no longer free. I think that that is a major difference.

Arrangements with schools very strict right from the start, when in school masks required for everyone, strict measure re hand gel and seating etc etc

So in summary I think there have been quite a few differences.

But also France goes up and down at different times from the UK, it might go up again.

@ACreakingGateNeverStops

I'm late to the party on this thread but the only thing I can add is one major difference between the UK and France is that the French govt. never banned household mixing like we did in the UK. This means family lunches/friends round for dinner have continued throughout.

I assume they considered it govt. over reach to tell people who they could and couldn't have in their own home.

I think their constitution does not allow them to tell people who they can and cannot have visiting their home.

I get the impression that family lunch in France is sacrosanct.

Although whether it is held indoors or outdoors, at whatever time of year, and who is invited outside the family, those are other matters.

There is also the tradition of the cinq a sept (dalliances). I don't think French people would take kindly to being told how to manage those aspects of their private affairs.

Icedpurple and creakinggate, during the confinements we were not allowed to visit each other's homes unless for one of the defined reasons such as providing care. During the curfew same for the curfew hours.

I was in France recently, and rules there are pretty strict. Lockdown, when that was in place, required you to have a pass printed that day and the police and military would stop you and check, and that you weren't more than a short distance from your house.

They've had evening and night curfews for much longer than we had, stopping fairly recently, meaning indoor mixing and social events have been very limited. The current rules mean that you can only go into supermarkets, shopping malls, restaurants etc if you are double vaccinated (there may be a possibility of testing negative on the day too).

Masks are worn in all inside public spaces, religiously, and local authorities have also mandated masks in some outdoor public spaces - markets, town centres, busy coastal footpaths etc...

Coming back to the UK, where people were going into supermarkets maskless felt bonkers after being in France.