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PONTOISE, France – In the town of Pontoise, which slopes gently down the Oise about 15 miles northwest of Paris, Mayor Stéphanie Von Euw is laser-focused on her new vaccination center – a blocky recreation facility sand-colored where up to 450 injections are given daily to people over 75 years of age or at high risk.
Ms Von Euw was energetic on a recent visit, chatting with doctors and vaccinees. But here in Pontoise, as in many other regions of France, there is no hiding place that a winter of pandemic slump has set in.
“To keep my head up, I try to follow this rule: I take it one day at a time,” Ms. Von Euw said on a table covered with boxes of chocolate left over from recent vaccines. “If I look to the future, I get lost.”
Caught between infection rates that remain stubbornly high despite months of economically damaging restrictions and a slow rollout of vaccines, there is a growing and grim sense in France that the country’s battle against the pandemic has stalled.
The country was preparing for a third national lockdown last month when President Emmanuel Macron decided not to do so. He made the calculated bet that he could tighten the restrictions just enough to prevent another outbreak of virus cases while avoiding the heavier economic and social cost of more drastic measures like those currently in force in Germany or Britain.
Weeks later, it’s still unclear whether this bet will pay off or whether, as some health experts have warned, there is little chance of containing the spread without a strict lockdown.
The average number of daily infections, at around 20,000, has not increased or decreased significantly over the past month. But more contagious variants from other parts of the world are spreading.
Arnaud Fontanet, an epidemiologist at the Institut Pasteur who is also a member of the Covid-19 government advisory board, said on Sunday that the chances of containing the epidemic without a strict lockdown are slim.
“It will all depend on our ability to control the distribution of the UK variant,” Fontanet told the Journal du Dimanche. “If we wait too long, we might be surprised by the accelerating epidemic.”
Hospitalizations are stable but still at high levels, with around 28,000 Covid-19 patients across the country, including around 3,300 occupying more than half of the capacity of intensive care units.
Some experts said they were concerned that a plateau in the number of infections at these higher levels would leave little room for maneuver if hospitals face another spike in cases.
The government is projecting optimism, and the Minister of Health even told Franceinfo radio on Tuesday that the country may never have to be locked down again. But the mood of the public is uncertain.
“There is a lot of hesitation,” said Odile Essombé-Missé, 79, who was in line at the Pontoise vaccination center for her 85-year-old husband’s injection. Asked about a new lockdown, she just shrugged.
“We put up with it,” she said at last, with her glasses perched on a colorful blue and orange mask, fogged up.
Mr Macron has sworn that all adults who wish to be vaccinated will be offered to them by the end of the summer.
More than 2.2 million people out of 67 million in France have received at least one dose to date and nearly 250,000 have been fully vaccinated. But with 3.1 doses administered per 100 people, according to a New York Times database, France still trails neighbors like Italy or Spain.
“We could double or even triple the pace,” said Von Euw, if her center received more vaccines.
But the European Union has struggled in recent weeks to guarantee a regular supply of doses. The French government has managed to open 1.7 million new date slots in the coming weeks, as deliveries arrive.
“I’m not yet safe, but I’m still reassured,” said Eliane Coudert, an 80-year-old pensioner who had come from the neighboring town of Eragny to Pontoise for her shot. She sat patiently with a handful of newly inoculated companions in a small waiting room, where doctors monitor unwanted side effects.
Ms Coudert, who is diabetic, said she was determined to get the vaccine so she could see her great-granddaughters again.
“I see them outside a bit,” she said. “But we can’t kiss each other.”
France has been under a nighttime curfew since mid-January and restaurants, cafes, museums or cinemas are closed, turning even the busiest French towns into ghost towns after 6 p.m.
So, in some ways, the vaccination center – where the local Rotary club sometimes brings croissants and other pastries – was a much needed social outing for the elderly who have spent weeks or months in near isolation.
“The restrictions imposed by social distancing are starting to exasperate everyone,” explains Dr Edouard Devaud, infectious disease specialist at the Center Hospitalier René-Dubos, the main hospital in Pontoise. “There is no spot of light at the end of the tunnel.”
The mostly British variants of the virus now account for one in seven of every new infection. Some regions, such as the Paris region, recorded even higher proportions. But the country’s infection figures have otherwise remained frustratingly stable.
Dr Devaud said the average number of Covid-19 patients in his unit – around five to 10, plus a dozen in intensive care – has so far been fully manageable thanks to better understanding and treatment of the disease. disease.
But the prospect of another lockdown worries him.
After the first lockdown last spring canceled all non-emergency care, doctors were alarmed at the consequences of delayed treatment, such as worsening cancers.
Health professionals have also seen an increased incidence of young people with serious mental health problems.
“So we have to get out of this pandemic,” said Dr Devaud.
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