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COVID-19

France to use helicopters and drones to enforce coronavirus restrictions

France is calling up helicopters and drones to boost the government's attempts to keep people in their homes, police officials said Saturday.

Published: 21 March 2020 18:54 CET
France to use helicopters and drones to enforce coronavirus restrictions
French Gendarmes use a helicopter as they patrol the beach of Porticcio on the French Mediterranean island of Corsica on March 21, 2020. AFP

“The helicopters will give us a larger vision and a panoramic view of the situation in real time to help guide the patrols on the ground,” a national gendarmerie source said.

One helicopter was already in use on Saturday, hovering above major Paris parks to ensure that confinement rules were respected.

Drones will also be used to help keep people confined, in particular to keep an eye on the banks of the Seine.

France has been in lockdown since midday on Tuesday, with excursions from the home limited to buying food, visiting the doctor, walking the dog or going for a solitary jog.

The measures came as the government mulled expanding the two-week home confinement imposed on all residents in a bid to brake the epidemic that has caused 562 deaths in France.

No gatherings are allowed, and workers can only go to the office if their employer does not provide an option for working from home.

AFP

People who venture outside need to carry a certificate, which can be printed from the government website, to declare the reason for their trip, and risk a 135-euro ($145) fine if they cannot show one.

The government has deployed 100,000 police to monitor people's movements. 

No curfew has been imposed.

Businesses are suffering from the restrictions. Many have been told to close with only key businesses like supermarkets and pharmacies allowed to keep their doors open.

“Here we are still making the bread but we're not giving out the change,” said one baker in the eastern Paris suburb of Montreuil.

Coins are laid out by denomination on the counter and customers take whatever is their due, in order not to spread the virus.

Ordinary citizens are also, increasingly, doing their bit to assuage the effects of the forced confinement.

A florists in the Sarthe region of western France is losing heavily as his stock of roses and tulips can't be preserved.

“Rather than throw them away we decided to send the flowers to hospitals throughout France to give a boost to the nursing staff,” said the florist, Philippe Bigot. “It's our contribution”.

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HEALTH

France’s Covid-19 app to be ‘put to sleep’

France's Covid-tracker app, used for months for the all-important 'health pass' will be switched off today, health officials have confirmed.

Published: 30 June 2023 13:29 CEST
France’s Covid-19 app to be 'put to sleep'

Covid-19 screening in France reaches an important milestone on Friday, June 30th, 2023 – when the TousAntiCovid app is officially ‘put to sleep’.

The app, which was launched in June 2020 as France came out of its first lockdown of the pandemic and has undergone a number of iterations, including as a delivery device for the health pass, will be switched off. 

For most people, this anniversary will pass without mention. Few people have consulted the app in recent months, and it has sat dormant on many smartphones since France’s Covid-19 health pass requirement was suspended in March 2022.

Meanwhile, the Système d’Informations de DEPistage (SI-DEP) interface – which has been informing people about their test results since the Spring of 2020 – is also being shut down on June 30th, as per legal requirements.

The SI-DEP shutdown means that it will also be impossible to retrieve Covid test certificates issued before June 30th, should the need arise. All data held by the database will be “destroyed”, officials have said.

It has handled more than 320 million antigen and PCR tests since it was introduced.

This does not mean that testing for Covid-19 has stopped, or is now unnecessary. As reported recently, more than 1,000 deaths a week in Europe are still caused by the virus.

The shutdown of the national information system does not mean that people in France cannot still book an appointment for an antigen test at a pharmacy, or a PCR test at a laboratory. But the number of people going for testing is declining rapidly. In recent days, according to Le Parisien, just 15,000 people in France took a Covid test – the lowest number, it said, since the pandemic started.

Reimbursement rules for testing changed on March 1st, with only certain categories of people – minors, those aged 65 and over, or immunosuppressed patients – covered for the entire cost of testing.

From Friday, only PCR test results will be transmitted to authorities for data purposes, meaning pharmacists that only offer antigen testing will be locked out of the online interface to record test results.

The reason for the shift in priorities is to maintain “minimal epidemiological surveillance”, the Ministry of Health has reportedly told scientists.

As a result test certificates, showing a positive or negative result, will no longer be issued from July 1st. Since February 1st, anyone taking a test has had to give consent to share their data in order to obtain a certificate. 

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