Paris (AFP)

Faced with uncertainties, including the quantity of tests available, the executive refuses for the time being to talk about the end of the tunnel of the health crisis but prepares to absorb the shock for long weeks, even months, while waiting for a vaccine. .

The summit of the State chants, without anyone really knowing whether it is only the epidemic or the major economic and social turbulence that will ensue: "it's a long, difficult fight, which will imply bad news, disappointments ", noted Edouard Philippe on Wednesday.

In a France officially confined until April 15 but which expects in an immense majority to have to play extra time at home, the question of the end of these exceptional measures is far from being settled, so many unknowns.

Questioned Wednesday at the Assembly, Mr. Philippe described the question as "frighteningly complex", recalling that there was "no precedent" or "proven method". "There are elements which we do not have entirely today", he observed, evoking for example the absence for the time being of "proven treatments".

The Prime Minister, however, considered "probable" that the deconfinement would not be done "all at once, everywhere and for everyone", hoping to be able to present a draft strategy "in the days, the week to come so as to give a perspective to our fellow citizens ".

"We asked several teams to work on this question by studying the opportunity, the feasibility of a deconfinement which would be regionalized, which would be subject to a policy of tests, depending, who knows, on age groups", continued the Prime Minister, however, still asking for time to work. Even if the executive is playing against the clock, as the economic repercussions promise to be devastating, the decision "will take into account above all the health imperatives", he added.

However, several indicators show that the crisis should spread at least until the beginning of the summer.

- The urgency of the tests -

First of all because it is the very desired effect of confinement, which aims to smooth the peak of the epidemic and the number of hospitalized patients and therefore increases its duration, supposedly at lower intensity.

Above all, the current lack of massive screening prevents us from having a clear vision of the spread of the coronavirus, while 80% of those infected have little or no symptoms.

"We have no idea how much of the population has been infected. We do not know how many people are positive, are cured. It is therefore difficult to predict anything," laments epidemiologist Catherine Hill , emphasizing "the urgency of testing on a representative sample of the population".

For the moment, nearly 30,000 tests are conducted each day. But serological tests, that is to say by blood sample, which will make it possible to check the level of antibodies and therefore the immunity of each person against the virus, will only be available "in the coming days, the next weeks" said Minister of Health Olivier Véran.

As for the "rapid tests", which will give results in a few minutes, their real ramp-up (100,000 per day) is not expected until June.

Another sign of anticipation of a long-term epidemic, the import of more than a billion and a half of masks, while France currently consumes 40 million per week. Even if these needs could increase in the coming weeks as the epidemic progresses, the state has decided to "make a lot of reservations with these orders", notes a minister.

In the United Kingdom, health authorities have already announced that the measures put in place to contain the disease would be reviewed "every three weeks" for "probably six months" or more, while a possible vaccine does not would not happen before 2021.

Another unknown still hangs: the seasonality of the virus, which seems to resist heat well as indicated by its implantation in Africa. According to Harvard epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch, "even if we can expect a modest regression", "it is not reasonable to expect a sharp fall" with the summer heat.

© 2020 AFP