Talking about a general closure in France and the Oxford vaccine touching the footsteps of Britain

There was a lot of talk about the Oxford vaccine after the British Ministry of Health said, on Sunday, that the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency should be given time to conduct a review of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine data for the Corona virus, while France did not rule out imposing a third general closure if the epidemiological curve continued to rise.

"We must now give the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency time to do its important work, and we must wait for its recommendations," a spokeswoman said.

The spokeswoman was responding to a report for newspaper “Sunday Telegraph”, which reported that Britain will introduce the vaccine from January 4, according to plans drawn up by ministers.

The newspaper said that the government hopes to give the first dose of the Oxford vaccine, which the AstraZeneca pharmaceutical company obtained a license to produce, or the Pfizer vaccine for two million within the next two weeks.

The newspaper added that medical regulators are expected to approve the Oxford vaccine within days.

This comes as the French Minister of Health, Olivier Veran, warned in an interview published on Sunday that the government will not hesitate to impose a third general closure at the country level, if the number of new infections with the emerging coronavirus continues to rise.

"We do not rule out any measure that may be necessary to protect the population," the minister said in an interview published in the weekly newspaper "Le Journal du Dimanche". This does not mean that we have made a decision, but we are monitoring the situation hour by hour.”

The Minister of Health's statement came at a time when the government fears that the country will be exposed in the coming weeks to a third epidemic wave after the holidays.

The minister pointed out that what increases the seriousness of the situation is that currently, "15 new infections are recorded daily on average, after we had decreased to 11 cases."

He added, "The target of 5 (new infections per day) is fading away. The pressure on the health system is still great, with 1500 new hospitalizations recorded daily,” although the largest number of these cases does not require transfer to the intensive care unit.

Ferran stressed that he is "ready to take the necessary measures if the situation worsens," noting that the situation is already worrying in a number of provinces located in the east of the country.

He added that a large number of mayors in eastern France have been appealing to him for several days to "re-impose the general closure measures, either at the whole country or at the local level" after Christmas.

It is noteworthy that infections of the new strain of the Covid-19 epidemic that appeared in the United Kingdom have been discovered in a number of countries, including France, Spain, Japan, Sweden, Italy and Canada.

The new Corona virus has caused the death of 750 people in the world since the World Health Organization office in China reported its appearance at the end of December 780, according to a census conducted by Agence France-Presse based on official sources. Nearly 2019 million cases have been officially registered.

The United States is the country with the highest number of deaths since the beginning of the epidemic. But in terms of its population (100 deaths per 100 inhabitants), it is less affected than countries such as Belgium, Italy, Peru, Spain and the United Kingdom.

Russia has also crossed the threshold of three million confirmed cases. Officially, only the United States, India and Brazil have recorded more infections, but comparisons between countries are not accurate and testing policies differ from country to country.