(Adds details, quotes, context)
By Sudip Kar-Gupta and Benoit Van Overstraeten
PARIS, Feb 2 (Reuters) - The highly contagious variant of
the coronavirus first detected in Britain now accounts for up to
20% of infections in the wider Paris region, a leading hospital
executive said on Tuesday, calling for more restrictive measures
to rein in the disease.
France's main COVID-19 indicators have reached two-month
highs on average on Monday but the government, who will hold a
dedicated COVID cabinet meeting on Wednesday, is still hoping to
avoid a third national lockdown.
"We have initial results in the Paris region and they are
not good", Remi Salomon, head of the medical committee of Paris
hospitals group AP-HP told franceinfo radio. "We were at 6% to
7% on Jan 7, we reached 15% to 20% last week."
"The variant will take over, we know it and that's why the
current measures will not be enough", Salomon said, reminding
this variant is 50% to 70% percent more contagious than the
initial strand of the virus.
Last week President Emmanuel Macron held off from imposing a
third national lockdown, instead toughening COVID-19 border
controls and reinforcing a nightly curfew.
Earlier in the day, Tourism Minister Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne
told French citizens not to cancel their vacation plans "for
now".
The ski lifts of the country's mountain resorts will
nonetheless remain closed throughout the February school
holidays, that kick off Friday, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
French health authorities reported 4,347 new coronavirus
infections over the previous 24 hours on Monday but the
seven-day moving average of daily new cases, which evens out
daily reporting irregularities, now stands at 20,515, the
highest since Nov 23.
France's cumulative total of cases is at 3,201,461, the
sixth-highest in the world and its COVID death toll, at 76,512,
is the seventh-highest.
After a slow start, the country's vaccination program has
gained some traction with about 1.54 million COVID-19 first
shots delivered as of Feb 1.
France's main health authority is due to approve
AstraZeneca's vaccine later in the day. Green light has
so far been given to the vaccines developed by Pfizer/BioNTech
, and Moderna.
(Reporting by Benoit Van Overstraeten and Sudip Kar-Gupta;
Editing by Richard Lough, Alexandra Hudson)
Astrazeneca (AZN)