Face Masks Now Mandatory in Paris
(AP) - The virus is actively circulating in about 20% of France’s regions and masks will now be required for everyone in Paris starting Friday — but the government is determined to reopen schools next week, get workers back on the job and kick off the Tour de France cycling race on Saturday.
Showing a map of the country’s new “red zones,” French Prime Minister Jean Castex on Thursday urged local authorities to impose new restrictions to slow infections and prevent another economically devastating national lockdown.
“The epidemic is gaining ground, and now we must intervene,” Castex said. France “must do everything to avoid a new confinement.”
He acknowledged that the rising cases this summer — attributed mostly to people going on vacation with family and friends — came earlier than authorities expected.
France is now seeing more than 50 positive tests per 100,000 people in Paris, Marseille and other areas. The government announced Thursday that 21 of 101 administrative regions, or departments, are now in the “red zone” where the virus is actively circulating, and where local authorities can impose stricter rules on gatherings and movements.
Castex asked Paris authorities to start requiring mask use everywhere, instead of in just select neighborhoods. Marseille already mandates masks.
Hours later, Paris police headquarters ordered that masks be worn by all pedestrians outdoors starting at 8 a.m. Friday. Cyclists and those using other open-air transport methods are included, but not people in cars. The top officials of three surrounding regions signed on to the orders, meaning that people in a vast swath of areas surrounding the French capital must also be masked in all public places.
The statement said that means would be put in place to ensure the new “obligation” is respected, but didn’t elaborate. Paris was among cities that earlier demanded masks in specific neighborhoods, with police leveling fines after a period of warnings.
Government ministers insisted that the once-renowned French hospital system is better prepared to handle new COVID-19 cases than it was when the virus raced across the country in March and April, saturating intensive care units.
France has reported more than 30,500 deaths related to the virus, the third-highest toll in Europe after Britain and Italy, but experts say all confirmed figures understate the true toll of the pandemic due to limited testing and other factors.
France was registering only a few hundred new infections a day in May and June but the number started ticking up in July as the country ramped up testing. Daily cases surged past 5,000 on Wednesday for the first time since May.
