PARIS French health workers responding to calls to reinforce overwhelmed hospitals will get free transport on trains, the state rail operator SNCF said on Monday. Doctors, nurses and aid workers are in short supply in Paris and in other areas suffering the brunt of the coronavirus outbreak, which has now caused 674 deaths in France, including that of a 67-year-old doctor who was infected early this month. The head of SNCF Voyages, Alain Krakovitch, told AFP that medical workers who can prove they are travelling to bolster hospitals will ride for free, although rail services were slashed after the nationwide stayat-home order to curb the outbreak. Officials in eastern France have also made local train and bus services free for health workers, and the mayor of the Mediterranean city of Nice said on Sunday that public buses were now exclusively for the use of health workers. With hospitals already overwhelmed by 7,240 coronavirus patients, the military has stepped in to transfer sick people from the worst-hit regions and set up field hospitals. Doctors have urged officials to extend and possibly tighten the confinement regime keeping people at home — a scientific advisory panel set up by President Emmanuel Macron is set to give its opinion on Monday. Several cities have imposed curfews in recent days, though the measure has not yet been ordered for Paris, where outdoor food markets were held as usual overthe weekend, albeit with stepped-up police patrols. On Sunday, France’s parliament declared health emergency for atwomonth period, giving the government greater powers to fight the pandemic.—APP
