> The events of the day:
9:50 a.m. High inflation in the UK. As in France, prices are on the rise across the Channel, but in greater proportions. Inflation has accelerated sharply in recent months in the United Kingdom to reach a peak in almost thirty years in December at 5.4%, in particular because of the price of food and clothing at Christmas. Food and energy prices have largely contributed to the price hike, while those for materials and wages have encouraged companies to boost selling prices.
9:30 a.m. Airbus will hire 6,000 people. Airbus will recruit around 6,000 people in the first part of 2022. The European aircraft manufacturer will reassess its needs during the year in order to support the ramp-up of its production following the Covid-19 crisis. These recruitments, which will take place worldwide, concern all activities. The number of group employees fell from 135,000 at the end of 2019 to 126,000 on September 30, 2021.
9:10 a.m. Worry regarding debt. François Villeroy de Galhau, Governor of the Banque de France, issues a warning regarding the level of French debt, which has increased sharply since the start of the pandemic. “The debt situation should worry us (…) We are today at 115% of GDP”, the gross domestic product, a level “too high”, he estimates on franceinfo. Additional spending or tax cuts would make the situation worse, he said. ” The no matter what is no longer justified. In addition, he guarantees that the Banque de France will do “what is necessary to bring inflation back to around 2% over time”.
8:50 a.m. A staggering of repayments. Bruno Le Maire confirms an agreement with the Banque de France to spread the repayment of loans guaranteed by the State over ten years instead of six. This concerns the companies most in difficulty which will be able to “demonstrate that they have made efforts to recover”. The Minister adds that those “which were already going badly will not be worse”.
8:45 a.m. Clarification on aid. The new aid announced on Tuesday on the turnover of companies in the hotel, café and restaurant sector will relate “to the months of December and January”, specifies the Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, on BFMTV and RMC. “If you only lose a small part of your turnover, 30%, the payroll will be covered up to 20%”.
8:20 a.m. “We have to adjust the protocols”. Amélie de Montchalin, Minister of Transformation and Public Service, declares, on Europe 1, regarding changes in protocol at school that “must be adjusted” according to the evolution of the pandemic. “Since the beginning of this crisis, the President of the Republic has always said we won’t necessarily be perfect, but count on us to correct the situation. So that means, yes, that the protocols have adjusted. »
8:15 a.m. Test flight in Sydney. A man stole 42,000 rapid antigen tests from a goods depot in Sydney. This is an increasingly rare commodity in Australia. According to the Australian Consumer Watch Body, these tests are priced at 22 Australian dollars each, around 20 euros.
8 hours. WestJet is cutting flights. Canadian airline WestJet says one in five planes in its fleet will remain grounded in February. The president and CEO says the decision was made due to Omicron’s impact on the company’s workforce and “persistent barriers” to international travel. The company has already cut 15% of its flights in January.
7:50 a.m. The deprogramming of operations will have a great cost for the company. Surgeon Laurent Lantieri is sounding the alarm. He is worried regarding the long-term consequences of the deprogramming of operations when he is already obliged to “sort”. “We are no longer even deprogramming. We just don’t program anymore! “And he questions the functioning of the healthcare system rather than the presence of non-vaccinated once morest Covid-19 in intensive care. “Patients in intensive care are not the only reason that prevents us from operating. If we do not operate, it is mainly because there is a lack of personnel. This reality bother me far more than the unvaccinated. The virus only exacerbates a situation that has settled in our hospitals for 25 years. All the delays that we are accumulating, we will pay for them humanly and financially in five to ten years. His full interview can be read here.
7:35 a.m. Difficult to do a simple blood test. Faced with the influx of people wanting to be tested in a laboratory, it is increasingly complicated to perform a simple blood test. People followed for chronic treatment are concerned as well as those needing a one-off analysis. Biology procedures are thus down 20% this month. If this is partly due to deprogramming in hospitals, François Blanchecotte, president of the Syndicate of Biologists, believes that “we must not weigh it down with people who simply give up”. “Fighting to get a blood test is too much. We tell ourselves never mind hoping there are no consequences. » More details in our article.
7:20 a.m. Record contamination in Germany. Germany has identified more than 100,000 new infections in 24 hours. 112,323 additional cases and 239 deaths have been counted. The one-week incidence rate is 584.4 infections per 100,000 people. Faced with the rise in contamination, the country has restricted access to bars and restaurants to people who have received a third dose of vaccine or who present a negative test in addition to a certificate of vaccination or recovery.
7:10 a.m. New restrictions in sight in Japan. Japan is set to reinstate restrictions in much of the country, including the capital Tokyo, in the face of record numbers of infections caused by the Omicron variant. Each department will be free to choose the restrictions they want to introduce between reducing opening hours for bars and restaurants and limiting the sale of alcohol. Japan has been relatively untouched by the pandemic, with 18,400 deaths since the start of 2020. It has also avoided strict containment measures, unlike many other countries.
7 hours. Containment partially lifted in China. Public transport has partially resumed in Xi’an, almost a month following the start of strict confinement in the Chinese metropolis hit by an epidemic rebound. The 13 million inhabitants were forbidden to leave their homes and the city had been placed in quarantine. For the first time in several weeks, no new local case of Covid-19 was recorded today in the former imperial capital.
6:50 a.m. Hundreds of millions of dollars more to fight the pandemic. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the British charitable foundation Wellcome announced on Tuesday that they would each invest an additional 150 million dollars (130 million euros, or 260 million in all) for the fight once morest Covid-19 and the prevention of future pandemics. These funds will go to the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), which notably co-pilots the Covax mechanism for distributing vaccines to the poorest countries.
6:40 a.m. Decline in critical care admissions. In parallel with the number of contaminations, the number of people admitted to critical care each day fell below 300, down 14% over one week.
6h30. Contaminations records. The daily number of new cases of Covid-19 contamination has exceeded 300,000 on average over the past seven days, according to figures published by Public Health France.
6:20 a.m. Deprogrammed operations. To give priority to people with severe forms of Covid-19, and also due to a lack of healthcare personnel, a large number of surgeries are deprogrammed, everywhere in France. Behind, there is the problem of the loss of opportunity for these collateral victims of the health crisis. Read our article.
6h10. Hello everyone. Welcome to this direct dedicated to Covid-19 and its consequences in France and in the rest of the world.
