France to extend coronavirus lockdown for second time as death toll climbs to nearly 11,000
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France will extend a national lockdown to contain the spread of the coronavirus, the French presidential palace said late Wednesday, as the disease killed another 541 people in a single day.
The move marks the second extension for the lockdown, which went into effect March 17 with an initial 15-day period. It will now run beyond its April 15 expiration date, though the Élysée Palace did not immediately give a new timeframe.
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The lockdown order will continue to prevent some 65 million French from going outside except to buy food and medicines, visiting the doctor and traveling for essential work. As many as 100,000 police officers are enforcing the order.
Those who go out are required to have a written note explaining why. Several towns and cities have mandated citizens to wear masks in public.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Municipal police officers check documents as they patrol in a street of Sceaux during nationwide confinement measures to counter the Covid-19. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
The palace also said President Emmanuel Macron will address the nation regarding the pandemic on Monday, Reuters reported.
Macron will speak amid a mounting death toll, which has climbed to nearly 11,000 as of Thursday. France trails only the U.S., Spain and Italy in fatalities.
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}France’s health officials this week warned that the country’s outbreak has not yet hit its apex.
“We are in the epidemic’s ascendant stage ... we have not yet reached the peak,” National Health Director Jerome Salomon told reporters, before acknowledging that the virus rate “is slowing a little.”
The lockdown extension comes as the country's health and digital ministers, Olivier Véran and Cédric O, announced the government is creating an app in an effort to slow the pandemic.
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They told French newspaper Le Monde that the app was still in an “exploratory phase,” but is designed to "limit the spread of the virus by identifying transmission chains.”
Fox News' Chris Ciaccia contributed to this report.