Things always come in threes? The Holiday challenge has been only recently completed amid the coronavirus epidemic, and France is now already preparing for a third wave. The threat of more transmissible coronavirus variants and the surge of the epidemic lead to new restrictions including an early curfew, from 6 p.m., across mainland France.

After a first local lockdown in Mayotte, a second process has been announced this Monday February 22, 2021 in Alpes-Maritimes. This time, the prefect announced a weekend lockdown, namely from Friday at 6 p.m. to Monday at 6 a.m. in addition to the curfew over the week. The day after, Dunkirk and the cities around decreed this measure as well. Starting March 6, Pas-de-Calais is added to those areas where weekend lockdown is applied to.

But this restriction may spread to more territories. What would be the regions, departments and cities it could be applied to? It all depends on the evolution of indicators. The one raising the alarm is the occupancy rate in ICU with covid patients. The overload of hospital units leads to the increase in the death toll. A map dedicated to this indicator enables to know the situation's daily evolution.

On February 25, 2021, during his press brief, Prime Minister Jean Castex stated that 20 departmentsare placed under strengthened surveillance. A week later, three more departments are added. The determining indicator is the incidence rate above 250 cases for 100,000 inhabitants. If this indicator is too high, measures might be strengthened including weekend lockdown.

They are:

• To be read
• Coronavirus in the world as of Friday March 5, 2021: latest case and death tolls in 24h per country
• Coronavirus in Paris and île-de-France as of Friday March 5, 2021
• Coronavirus in France, the situation on Friday March 5, 2021

• The entire Île-de-France: Paris (75), Essonne (91), Hauts-de-Seine (92), Seine-Saint-Denis (93), Val de Marne (94), Val d'Oise (95), Seine-et-Marne (77), and Yvelines (78)
• In Hauts-de-France: Nord (59), Oise (60), Pas-de-Calais (62), Aisne (02), Somme (80)
• In Provence-Alpes-Côte-d'Azur: Alpes-Maritimes (06), Hautes-Alpes (05), Bouches-du-Rhône (13), Var (83)
• In Grand-Est: Meurthe-et-Moselle (54), Aube (10), Moselle (57)
• In Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes: Drôme (26), Rhône (69)
• In Centre Val-de-Loire: Eure-et-Loire (28)

This Saturday February 27, Castex spoke with prefects from the 20 departments in question, and the general directors of the Regional Health Agencies, and the PM asked them to strengthen surveillance, and improve controls of the health measures already implemented, especially curfew.

Matignon announces the head of government has "called prefects to carry out in-depth consultations, and make immediate measures: strengthening controls of measures instated, improving the vaccination campaign, deploying saliva tests in schools, complying with remote working guidelines".

Follow indicators on a daily basis:

France Covid map, March 4, ICU bed occupancy rate per region
We keep on monitoring data as for the coronavirus situation in France closely. More and more departments are once again vigilance areas because of the virus being highly active. This Thursday March 4, 2021, 71.8% of ICU beds are taken in France. 100% of departments are highly vulnerable. The entire country is still on health emergency and placed under early curfew starting 6 p.m. Mayotte is back in lockdown while Alpes-Maritimes and Dunkirk and cities around are placed in partial lockdown.

Incidence rate in France as of March 4, 2021
Jean Castex announced nationwide curfew from 6 p.m. for at least two weeks. The incidence rate by department remains an indicator to monitor very closely to know more about the evolution of the epidemic. As a matter of fact, even though departments exceeding the threshold of 200 positive cases for 100,000 inhabitants were first to make new measures to fight against the spread of the epidemic, including implementing extended curfew, brought forward to 6 p.m., the entire country now has to comply with the measure until the situation improves. Here are the incidence rates in each department as of Thursday March 4, 2021.