President Emmanuel Macron orders nationwide lockdown as second COVID-19 wave sweeps France

France will go back into a nationwide lockdown starting this week to try to contain the COVID-19 epidemic that is again threatening to spiral out of control, French President Emmanuel Macron said in an address to the nation on October 28.

The new measures echo the eight-week lockdown that France enforced in the spring, when hospitalisations and deaths caused by the COVID-19 epidemic reached a peak. But unlike the previous lockdown, most schools are to remain open, Macron said.

France on October 27 reported 523 new deaths from coronavirus over the previous 24 hours, the highest daily toll since April, when the virus was at its most severe. Doctors have warned that intensive care units risk becoming overwhelmed.

France’s death toll, at over 35,000, is the seventh highest in the world, according to Reuters data.