Despite the increase in the number of coronavirus cases, the government plans to reduce the period of isolation for patients and contact cases, "probably too long".

A "good idea" for Pr Rémi Salomon, president of the AP-HP Medical Commission, for whom the tests must be better prioritized. 

INTERVIEW

Faced with the "exponential" increase in the number of coronavirus cases, is the policy for testing and monitoring patients appropriate?

While the indicators continue to deteriorate, the government nevertheless plans to shorten the fortnight, the period of isolation of patients and contact cases.

"This famous fortnight (...) is undoubtedly too long", thus indicated the Minister of Health Olivier Véran, Saturday, on BFM-TV.

For Pr Rémi Salomon, president of the AP-HP Medical Commission, "it's a good idea". 

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"The contagiousness is essentially during the first week", recalls the specialist, who prefers to insist on the changes to be made to the testing policy.

"Tests, we do a lot, more than a million per week. What is needed is to target them on the populations most at risk and have rapid results," he adds. 

"This is also what poses a problem", insists Rémi Salomon, because "beside the barrier gestures, which would allow the chains of contamination to be broken, it is this famous 'contact tracing'".

However, currently, "it does not work very well". 

For the tests, "you have to go out in front of people"

Access to tests and the increasingly long delays in obtaining results are indeed reducing the effectiveness of the response to Covid-19.

"If you have the result three or four days after the onset of symptoms, and the time that we do the isolation, we have wasted time and you have contaminated people," explains Rémi Salomon.

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Faced with this situation, the president of the Medical Commission of the AP-HP calls to "focus on the people most at risk and isolate them".

Problem, he notes, "there are people who will probably never get tested for fear of being isolated, of being forced to stop."

And to insist: "We must go to people, and in precarious populations, such as restaurateurs or independent professions who do not want to be tested, probably take economic measures", for example with a system of indemnities .