Merkel says confusion over Easter restrictions was ‘singularly and only my mistake’



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French Culture Minister Roselyne Bachelot attends an event in Paris on February 11.
French Culture Minister Roselyne Bachelot attends an event in Paris on February 11. François Mori / Pool / AFP / Getty Images

French Culture Minister Roselyne Bachelot was admitted to hospital after contracting Covid-19, her spokesperson told CNN on Wednesday, the second government minister hospitalized with the virus this week. The 74-year-old received her first dose of the vaccine on March 17.

Labor Minister Élisabeth Borne, 59, was hospitalized with Covid-19 on Monday and was released on Wednesday, according to a press release from the ministry.

“I’m relieved,” Borne tweeted as he left the hospital. She tested positive for the virus on March 1.

Confinement linked to covid: France is in the throes of a third wave of coronavirus, with new lockdown restrictions implemented in 16 areas last Friday.

Non-essential businesses have been closed in the worst-affected areas of France, where people are prohibited from moving more than 10 km from their homes or moving between regions without a valid reason.

The new measures are less restrictive than those imposed in March and November last year, admitted Prime Minister Jean Castex when he announced them last week.

“Very clearly, the messages did not get through. The confusion over the weekend led to more mistrust, ”Jean-François Timsit, head of intensive care at Bichat hospital in Paris, told France Inter radio on Wednesday, referring to the backtracking on travel authorizations while criticizing the complicated nature of the restrictions.

“We should have braked earlier,” he added in the interview.

Recalling that positive Covid-19 cases could now require hospitalization in the coming weeks, Timsit said: “Next month is going to be hellish.”

“We have several difficult weeks ahead of us,” French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said on BFMTV on Wednesday morning, adding: “Covid is once again taking a kind of expansion, it’s very worrying.”

Easter restrictions: The minister said in the interview that there will be no easing of restrictions for the Easter weekend, although church services are allowed to take place outside of the nighttime curfew. He also encouraged the French public “not to come together to the weekends to come.

“We need to limit them,” the minister said of the Easter celebrations. “They must remain in the strict family privacy of the house, the apartment, and we must not receive friends, family, or travel.”

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