The French government set a timeline on Thursday to lift the country’s Covid-19 restrictions over the next few weeks, as pandemic indicators in France show tentative signs of improvement and a presidential election looms in April. Jean Castex, the French prime minister, said at a news conference that there was a “clear ebbing” of the wave of coronavirus cases attributable to the Delta variant, as well as preliminary indications that another surge of cases linked to the Omicron variant was slowing down in the areas where it struck first, like the region around Paris. “This exceptional wave is not over, but the situation is starting to evolve more favorably,” Mr. Castex said. France has averaged more than 300,000 new cases a day over the past week, and reported 525,000 cases on Monday, the most known cases in a single day since the pandemic began. There are more than 27,000 Covid-19 patients in hospitals around the country, but the number in intensive care units has declined in the past few days, from a peak of nearly 4,000 patients last week.

Source: New York Times January 21, 2022 11:32 UTC