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Whether he would now get a boost out of sympathy for his condition or see concern over a political vacuum affect his popularity was unclear. The next presidential election is 18 months away.

“This may enable Macron to have greater weight and authority in getting people to observe the lockdown rules,” Jaques Rupnik, a prominent political scientist, said. “The second wave has been very difficult to swallow for many people. It could also strengthen his message on getting vaccinated in a country where only a small majority trusts the vaccine.”

Hopes for better times are vested in a vaccine. Prime Minister Jean Castex, who will also work in isolation after attending the weekly cabinet meeting with Mr. Macron on Wednesday, announced this week that inoculations would start in the last week of the year.

France is expected to receive a first shipment of 1.16 million doses by then, once European and French authorities have approved the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. But the vaccine will be no immediate panacea.

Since the pandemic began, there have been more than 2.4 million confirmed cases of Covid-19 in France and more than 59,000 deaths, among the worst numbers in Europe. New cases are averaging about 12,000 a day. The number of patients in intensive care has decreased to around 2,900 since the second lockdown, compared to almost 5,000 a month ago, but that was not enough to avoid the imposition of a holiday-season curfew.

Reporting was contributed by Raphael Minder from Madrid, Liz Alderman, Constant Méheut and Aurelien Breeden from Paris, and Matina Stevis-Gridneff from Brussels.