Can we still “save” Christmas from confinement?

We don't want to spoil the article, but this kind of image, you can forget it for your Christmas -

• According to the President of the Scientific Council, the reconfinement which begins this Friday will go beyond December 1, date on which it is impossible, according to him, for the health situation to be good enough to be deconfined.

• Next deadline, Christmas, with this question in the background: will it be possible to spend it with family or will the holidays also be confined?

• With relaxed containment and therefore more social interactions, and given the current circulation of the virus, Christmas is far from assured.

In his speech on the reconfinement of France, this Wednesday, President Emmanuel Macron referred to a first duration of four weeks, until December 1, in order to stem the second wave of coronavirus, keeping "the hope of celebrating in family Christmas and the end of the year celebrations ”.

This is notably the avowed goal of Irish confinement, from which France seems to have at least partly taken inspiration (with in particular the maintenance of the opening of schools).

In Dublin, the Prime Minister of the country clearly indicated the purpose of this six-week confinement: to make it possible to spend the best (or "less worst") Christmas possible.

But Ireland made this decision nine days before France and with much less circulation of the coronavirus.

The question therefore arises: can France also succeed in this objective and “save” Christmas, or is confinement coming too late, and with a too damaged health situation, to hope to be ready for December 25?

Lightened confinement, longer confinement?

Obviously, it is still very early to provide a clear answer to this question.

"We will know more in the next two to four weeks, they will be crucial to determine what direction and how quickly this re-containment works," said Mahmoud Zureik, professor of epidemiology and public health.

Because this reconfinement has its share of mysteries for the moment indecipherable.

With the maintenance of schools and more face-to-face work, at what rate will it slow down the circulation of the virus, and how long will it take us to see the effects?

"There is no secret, pleads Mahmoud Zureik.

To drastically reduce the circulation of the virus, social interactions must be reduced.

"However, there will in fact be more social interactions in this re-containment than in that of March," the drop in contamination and R (number of people infected by a sick person on average) will be logically slower ", concludes the professor.

Emmanuel Macron also made it clear in his speech that the four weeks of confinement could be renewable as long as the objective set, less than 5,000 new positive cases per day, would not be reached.

The next day, the President of the Scientific Council, Jean-François Delfraissy, also went in this direction on France Inter.

For him, it is impossible for France to achieve this objective in one month: “The data that we have in our models show that on December 1, we will not be at 5,000 contaminations per day.

That I can tell you straight away today.

So it's going to take more time.

"

But effects could be visible before those of confinement (which will take, as for each measure, two to three weeks before being visible in the figures of Public Health France, the time that the virus incubates), and it is perhaps there that hope remains to "save" Christmas.

Containment is only the latest measure taken by the government, and the multiple curfews implemented, especially those in Paris and eight metropolitan areas on October 16, should show their first effects in a few days.

All Saints' Day, Christmas ally

"If the curfews prove their effectiveness, we would observe a drop in the number of hospitalizations and cases, or at least a slowing down of their increase, from next week," says epidemiologist Pascal Crépey.

There would therefore not be the latency effect of two or three weeks of confinement without prior measurement.

What is more, containment would actually start from an epidemic situation less serious than the current one, if the curfews show effects.

However, Mahmoud Zureik, the effects of curfews "are expected to be extremely limited".

Even if this is true, another previous event could show positive effects on slowing the epidemic in the coming days: the All Saints holidays, which also began on October 16.

However, like all school holidays, All Saints' Day means an absence of classes for two weeks, fewer courses at the university, more people on vacation and therefore not doing face-to-face work in a company.

In other words, less social interactions, and therefore less contamination.

What minimal R can this confinement reach?

"There is no secret" therefore, we must lower the R. The more the R is below 1, the less patients contaminate other people, the more the number of patients drops and therefore the number of positive cases, with this goal of 5,000 new cases per day.

During the containment of March-April-May, the R was approximately between 0.5 and 0.6, which meant that each patient infected an average of 0.5 people.

It is difficult to think that this second containment will go below therefore, with all the new interactions compared to the first.

However, the R could still go very low.

“During the first confinement, the population was not equipped with masks or not systematically, many interactions, as limited as they were, led to contamination.

There, we can hope that the increase in interactions will be somewhat offset by the mask and a better understanding and application of barrier gestures ”, supports Pascal Crépey for the optimistic part.

For the pessimistic part, the epidemiologist cites November and the cold: less ventilation, interactions taking place in closed places ... Again more likely to be contaminated than under the sun, with the windows wide open or even meetings outside. March April.

It is therefore difficult to see clearly and to predict whether Christmas can be "saved".

Mahmoud Zureik has the half-bitter, half-hope conclusion: “It is not necessary and it is not useful for the population to lose hope.

Christmas is not yet doomed.

But anyway, it will be a Covid Christmas with restrictions and barrier gestures.

The truly happy days will wait until 2021.

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• Confinement

• Coronavirus

• Covid 19

• Society

• Health

• epidemic

• Christmas