The Senate abolishes the "sanitary pass" for minors, the Delta variant is progressing in the world

The senators adopted during the night of Saturday to Sunday the bill relating to "the adaptation of our tools for managing the health crisis". The Senate made several changes to the bill, including the removal of the health pass for minors. The application of the “sanitary pass” should also be limited “to confined spaces by targeting only the interior and not the exterior spaces”. The project was adopted at first reading with 199 votes in favor and 123 votes against. The bill will be examined by the joint joint committee this Sunday from 3:00 p.m. The text provides for an extension of the "health pass" in places open to the public and introduces a vaccination obligation for caregivers in order to fight against the resurgence of the COVID-19 epidemic linked to the Delta variant.

Experiment in Calvados

The Calvados prefecture announced a "voluntary experiment" on Sunday of the "sanitary pass" in bars and restaurants on the Côte Fleurie (Deauville, Trouville), to deal with to a sharp increase in the number of Covid-19 cases. “We anticipate the mandatory device by a week. It is a way of securing the frequentation of bars and restaurants”, declared to AFP Philippe Court, prefect of Calvados. The experiment should begin on Sunday morning in the bars and restaurants of the community of municipalities Cœur Côte Fleurie, which includes 12 municipalities including the seaside resorts of Deauville and Trouville-sur-Mer. In addition, 3,000 additional slots will be dedicated to the vaccination of professionals and employees of hotels, cafes, restaurants and other seasonal tourist activities.

The incidence rate of the virus has increased significantly on the Côte Fleurie from 320 per 100,000 inhabitants on Monday to 807 on Saturday, according to the prefecture. "This situation is explained by the presence of the Delta variant, now largely in the majority, as well as, on the Coast, a high influx and a summer context, sometimes festive, which led to the appearance of several clusters", specified the prefecture in a press release. A consultation was organized on Friday with the prefect, the mayors and the professionals of bars, restaurants and hotels, at the end of which "it was decided to anticipate the extension of the health pass to bars and restaurants (...) under the form of voluntary experimentation", according to the prefecture.

Demonstrations against the "health pass"

Tens of thousands of people, sometimes going so far as to denounce "totalitarian" tendencies, demonstrated on Saturday in Australia, France and Italy, in particular against the health measures imposed to stem the resumption of the Covid-19 epidemic due to the virulent Delta variant. In France, it was to cries of "Freedom, freedom!", that more than 160,000 people, including 11,000 in Paris, demonstrated against the extension of the "sanitary pass" and compulsory vaccination for certain professions such as medical personnel.

"Our country is becoming totalitarian," said Jean-Claude Dib, 71, a retired truck driver who said he was "ready to strike back". Two journalists from the public channel France 2 were attacked while covering the demonstration. In Paris, a procession mainly made up of "yellow vests", a protest movement hostile to the social policy of President Emmanuel Macron, marched from Place de la Bastille. Sporadic incidents opposed police and demonstrators, and nine people were arrested, according to the Ministry of the Interior. Another procession from the Trocadéro was led by far-right politician Florian Philippot, former number 2 of Marine Le Pen's National Rally party. Between two "Marseillaise", he denounced the "apartheid" that the executive is setting up, calling for the fall of "the tyrant" Macron.

Never mind the anti-"sanitary pass" and their completely off-the-wall slogans, a very large majority of French people (76%) approve of the decision to make vaccination compulsory for healthcare workers and other professions, according to a July 13 poll. The "sanitary pass" also collects a majority of approvals.

Demonstrations in Italy and Australia

In Italy, there were also thousands of demonstrators, again protesting against the adoption of a compulsory "health pass" to access closed places from 6 august. "Freedom!", "No to dictatorship", chanted the demonstrators from Naples to Turin. "Better to die free than live as a slave", could be read on a sign in front of the cathedral of Milan, when in the historic center of Rome, another presented a photo of the gate of the Auschwitz extermination camp (where appears the inscription "Arbeit macht frei", "Work makes you free", editor's note), with these words: "Vaccines make you free". In Genoa, the demonstrators wore yellow stars where "not vaccinated" was written. As in France, the announcement of new restrictive measures in the face of the progression of the Delta variant has however caused a rush on vaccination: up to + 200% in certain regions, according to General Francesco Figliuolo, extraordinary commissioner in charge of the campaign. vaccine.

Earlier in the day it was in Sydney that scuffles took place between police on horseback and demonstrators, while the inhabitants of this city of five million inhabitants were ordered to stay at home for a month. In Melbourne, thousands of people according to local media had taken to the streets after gathering outside the Victorian state parliament. “Wake up Australia” read placards, the slogans echoing messages seen at similar protests overseas.

Vietnam is on lockdown, Lebanon is suffering

Across the planet, health restrictions are increasing in an effort to limit the impact of the dizzying spread of the Delta variant of the coronavirus on hospital services. The pandemic has already claimed more than 4.1 million lives since the end of 2019. Vietnam on Saturday placed the eight million inhabitants of its capital Hanoi in confinement in an attempt to contain the surge in Covid cases, which has already forced a third of the country's population to stay at home. Authorities on Friday reported more than 7,000 new cases, the third record for single-day infections in a week.

Germany, Europe's largest economy, itself struggling with an acceleration of contamination, has decided to tighten restrictions on travel to Spain, including the Balearic Islands and the Canary Islands, in the face of a resurgence of Covid cases in these popular tourist destinations for its citizens. For its part, Spain will impose a ten-day quarantine on travelers from Argentina, Colombia, Bolivia and Namibia from July 27, the government announced on Saturday. A measure prompted by the increase in cases in the Latin America and Caribbean region, the most bereaved in the world by the pandemic, which on Saturday exceeded the threshold of 40 million declared cases of Covid-19 for more than 1.3 million deaths. .

The situation is also worrying in Lebanon, whose economic collapse and electricity shortages are making hospitals more vulnerable. “All hospitals (…) are now less prepared than they were at the time of the wave that occurred at the beginning of the year,” Firass Abiad, director of Rafic University Hospital, told AFP. Hariri, the largest public hospital in the country.

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