Place de la concorde, Plaza in Paris, France

Paris, Jan 15 French Prime Minister Jean Castex has announced a new series of stricter Covid19 rules, among them an earlier nationwide curfew, as the pandemic "is under control" but remains "worrying" because of the new rapidly spreading variants.Speaking at a press conference on Thursday, Castex said that a night-time ban on people's movement, in force since mid-December 2020, would be brought forward by two hours across the national territory, reports Xinhua news agency.The earlier curfew has already in place in 25 out of the country's 101 departments.Starting from Saturday, the country's 67 million inhabitants are ordered to stay at home from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. for at least two weeks.Permissions will be available for those who have health emergencies and those who work at night, he added.Besides, all non-European travellers arriving in France would have to present a negative Covid-19 test less than 72 hours before boarding their flights. They would have to self-quarantine for seven days and then take a second test, he added.The French premier stressed that the emergence of more contagious coronavirus strains was particularly worrying.On Thursday, France's Public Health Agency reported 66 new infections of VOC 202012/01 (the variant first detected in the UK) and three new cases of 501Y.V2 (the variant first reported in South Africa).Castex, however, added that "the situation is under control" compared to other European countries and that there is no need, at this stage, to issue a third stay-at-home order."The situation doesn't require that we impose a new lockdown. But if we observe a strong epidemic deterioration, we would be led without delay to new confinement," he said.Castex said the new measures will "lead us to devote all our forces to the vaccination campaign. It offers us a prospect of hope".On Thursday, 71,049 people in France received the first dose. A total of 318,216 inhabitants have got the shot since December 27, 2020, when the country launched its campaign."The sooner we vaccinate the most vulnerable, the sooner our hospitals will be spared the risk of being overwhelmed," Castex told reporters, adding that the government aims to vaccinate more than one million people by the end of January.As of Friday, France has tallied 2,851,670 Covid-19 infections, after 21,228 new cases were confirmed in the past 24 hours.Health authorities recorded 282 new deaths, bringing the toll to 69,313.( With inputs from IANS )Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor

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