PARIS (AP) — France and other countries in Europe are preparing to relax coronavirus restrictions while still pouring massive human, medical, financial and technological resources into keeping thousands of COVID-19 patients alive. Inside one of Paris’ biggest hospitals, state-of-the-art artificial lungs are giving the most critical patients a last-ditch shot at survival. Outside, healthy people are planning getaways and drinks with friends as the country embarks on the perilous process of gingerly easing out of its latest lockdown. Some frontline caregivers in hospitals see the easing as premature. Intensive care unit admissions at French hospitals remain stubbornly higher than at any point since the pandemic’s catastrophic first surge.
