Covid-19 pandemic ‘under control’ in France – head of government advisory body

The spread of the coronavirus is currently “under control” in the country, the head of the French government’s Covid-19 scientific advisory council, Jean-Francois Delfraissy, has said.

“There were tens of thousands new daily cases, roughly 80,000, in early March before the lockdown. Now we have an estimated 1,000 cases per day,” Delfraissy told France Inter radio on Friday.

Earlier on Thursday, the Covid-19 Scientific Council, an ad hoc body headed by Delfraissy, released a paper outlining four possible scenarios of how the situation in the country could develop with social distancing measures gradually lifted.

In the interview, Delfraissy said the French healthcare system is prepared to identify new cases and prevent outbreaks from spreading. Due to this, he said he is hopeful that a second nationwide lockdown will not be necessary.

France, along with Italy and Spain, is among the EU countries affected worst by the pandemic. As of Friday, it had almost 190,000 reported Covid-19 cases and almost 30,000 deaths associated with the disease.

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