The entrance to the emergency room of a French hospital (illustrative image).

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LOIC VENANCE / AFP

Most indicators now falling much slower, there is a "high risk" that the circulation of the Covid-19 virus will start to rise again "in the coming weeks in France", Public Health France warned on Thursday in its last weekly epidemiological bulletin.

With 72,121 new cases during the week of November 30, against 76,500 the previous week (-6%), the drop in the number of new cases of Covid-19 recorded by RT-PCR or antigenic tests marked time "after four weeks of sharp decline in the epidemic ”.

The positivity rate is almost stable at 6.4%, against 6.5% the previous week.

Public Health France calls for vigilance during the holidays

In hospitals, the number of new admissions of patients with Covid-19 also decreased slightly, from 9,247 during the week of November 23 to 8,424 for that of November 30 (-9%), as did admissions to intensive care units which are from 1,346 to 1,127 (-16%).

The number of deaths fell from 3,204 to 2,589 (-19%).

"In week 49 (from November 30 to December 6), the evolution of the main indicators of the contact follow-up activity stabilizes, after four weeks of sharp decrease", notes Public Health France.

"After four weeks of decrease in the epidemic, the current evolution of the epidemic suggests a high risk of seeing the circulation of the SARS-CoV-2 virus again increase in the coming weeks in France and calls for the greatest vigilance , especially in view of the end of year celebrations, ”adds the health agency.

The government on Thursday evening announced new health restrictions compared to its original plan, including maintaining a curfew on the evening of December 31 and closing three more weeks of cinemas, theaters and museums, which were originally scheduled to reopen on December 31. December 15.

The head of state had conditioned the easing of restrictions on a target of 5,000 new cases per day, while it is currently around 10,000.

Slackening and winter temperatures

For epidemiologists from the health agency, it is too early to attribute this development to the reopening of so-called “non-essential” businesses on November 28.

While being cautious, the head of the respiratory infections and vaccination unit of SpF, Daniel Levy-Bruhl, made two hypotheses: on the one hand, "a certain relaxation of individual prevention measures", on the other hand, " meteorological factors ”.

"There is good reason to believe that climatic factors play on the epidemic dynamic, if only through the synchronicity of epidemic resumptions in different countries which have different risk management policies when the thermometer drops or increases", a he noted.

But "we do not know very well how to distinguish between the direct effect of the weather on the virus, its virulence, its persistence in the airways and the indirect effect that cold and bad weather in general have on people. human behavior ”, in particular less ventilation of rooms.

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