Faced with the flu epidemic, should we make the wearing of masks compulsory?

Yasmina Kattou / Photo credits: JC MILHET / HANS LUCAS / HANS LUCAS VIA AFP 10:15 a.m., January 11, 2024

Will we reintegrate the mask into our daily lives? Spain is facing a flu epidemic, and a fairly high circulation of a multitude of viruses. Spaniards lifted the mask mandate in hospitals last July but traumatised by the deaths during the Covid pandemic, the authorities agreed on a mandatory return. In France, all regions have entered the epidemic phase for influenza and yet, everyone can enter the hospital without a mask. Why is there no return to an obligation?

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Awareness "absent"

Each hospital director can reinstate the mask requirement if he or she deems the measure necessary. This is the case in some hospitals, such as in La Rochelle or Strasbourg. COVARS, the committee for the anticipation of health risks, recommends that it be imposed in services that welcome vulnerable people, but prefers to avoid coercion. "Obligation is a complicated thing. We strongly recommend masks, but in French history, there has not been a mask obligation for any of the flu epidemics," says Brigitte Autran, president of Covars.

Calling for the responsibility of the French is insufficient, say associations of immunocompromised people, such as Renaloo, which represents kidney patients. Its president, Yvanie Caillé, is also campaigning for the return of masks in all enclosed places. "We have the impression that today, awareness around these issues is too absent and this leads to situations where we see that in these places where wearing a mask should be natural, in fact, only a very small minority of people wear it," she laments.

According to a recent survey by Public Health France, only 15% of French people are masked in front of the most fragile.