Does the new health protocol for businesses hold up?

A merchant completes a sign indicating how many people can enter his shop.

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• The so-called "non-essential" shops will be able to reopen on Saturday everywhere in France, within a month of Christmas.

• To do this, the government has set a new framework that includes the reception of one person for 8 square meters.

• The specialists interviewed by

  20 Minutes

  are rather convinced by the new rules.

Simpler and more “readable” but also “reinforced”.

This is how the government has qualified the new health protocol against Covid-19 which must apply to businesses from Saturday.

During this "relaxation" of confinement, businesses previously called "non-essential" will indeed be able to reopen.

Here are the new rules that will apply: no more than one person per 8 square meters;

the entire surface area of ​​the store open to the public is counted, without removing the stalls or furniture as was the case until now;

employees are not counted, only clients;

members of the same family count as one;

stores are regularly aired.

This new protocol is, as we are used to, the result of a compromise between various constraints.

Is it consistent?

"It is not absurd at all", finds Marie-Aline Bloch, researcher in management science, specialist in the health system at the School of Advanced Studies in Public Health (EHESP).

She recalls that the basis is all the same to make sure that "people are not too close to each other".

"After that, whether we set the limit at 6, 8, 10 or 12 square meters, we have to make a choice at a time," she slices.

Give simple rules

The various exceptions to this rule of 8 square meters for one person, for families and employees, are they not a problem?

Anne Senequier, researcher and co-director of the Observatory of Global Health at Iris, interviewed by

, wants to be pragmatic.

"This rule does not seek to reduce the risk of contamination between members of the same family in shops, but to reduce the risks of contamination between customers who do not know each other, and which could then increase the chain of transmission of the virus. .

It is for her the same principle for the employees of the shops.

Not to mention that “if the employee was counted in this rule, very small surfaces could not open….

".

It's about keeping it simple.

And we must never forget that when it comes to risk reduction, it is better to keep it simple but a little less effective than complex and pretend to be unstoppable.

"If you do something too complicated, people will not respect the rule," observes Marie-Aline Bloch.

The best is the enemy of the good in public health.

Knowing that the contagiousness drops sharply after one week, it is by following this same principle that at the start of the school year it was decided to reduce the duration of confinement of infected people from fourteen to seven days.

The basic ventilation of shops

In the new sanitary protocol, our two specialists insist on the fundamental ventilation of the premises.

The government recommends it, whether by opening the doors and windows or by a ventilation system.

Marie-Aline Bloch fears that the winter climate will cool small traders on this subject.

The researcher adds a recommendation: take into account the overall volume of premises.

"If you have eight meters under the ceiling, it is obvious that aerosols can more easily be diluted in the air", and thus represent less danger for those present.

It remains to be seen whether the reopening conditions will satisfy traders.

Even if Alain Griset, the Minister for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises, clarified this morning that this new protocol was the result of consultations with organizations in the sector, it is not necessarily won.

Marc Sanchez, general secretary of the Syndicate of Independents already believes that the new protocol "increases the constraints" of professionals, while the announced compensations, such as the possibility of opening on Sundays, seem unnecessary to him because it is already the case anyway. case at this time of year, usually.

Anne Senequier recognizes that for small surfaces, it will remain difficult since they can only accept one or two people at the same time.

It therefore recommends combining reopening with "" click and collect ", to offer a wider range of possibilities to customers but also to traders".

Proof that as the government says, it is not a question of deconfinement, but of a relaxation of confinement.

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• Health

• Trade

• Public health

• Covid 19

• Confinement

• Coronavirus