In the United Kingdom, the re-containment decided on December 20 only partially slows down the spread of the highly contagious variant of the coronavirus.

Faced with this worrying example, French scientists are calling on the government to reconfigure the country as soon as possible to avoid a further acceleration of the epidemic.

Reconfining, not reconfining?

The time for arbitration is running out for the government.

France could indeed follow in the footsteps of Great Britain, hit hard by the variant of the coronavirus that appeared on its soil.

More contagious, and even potentially more deadly, it pushed the British government to reconfigure the country on December 20.

This variant is now circulating in France.

Faced with this new threat, many scientists, like the President of the Scientific Council Jean-François Delfraissy, are calling on the French government to decide on a re-containment without delay.

They fear that "after", "it will be too late".

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This British variant is all the more worrying since in the United Kingdom, the re-containment has not made it possible to rapidly reduce the rate of reproduction of the virus, that is to say the number of people infected by a patient: it is currently 0.8.

This is more than the reproduction rate observed in France during the second confinement: it reached 0.6 at the end of November.

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Reinforce barrier gestures

It is the contagiousness of the variant that explains these figures.

You only need to be exposed to a very small amount of this virus to become infected, which makes it much more difficult to control.

"This means that instead of respecting distances between people of 1.5 meters, we must switch to distances of 2.5 meters, and abandon fabric masks for more effective masks", explains to Europe 1 Professor Philippe Froguel, geneticist at the Lille hospital.

In addition, you have to keep your mask almost constantly, even with your family.

It therefore becomes very difficult to protect yourself in the presence of the British variant.

In France, if we want to get out of it, we really have to confine it right away.

Otherwise, the virus will be everywhere in France. "

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Arbitrations in progress

It remains to be seen whether the government will lean towards a kind of "preventive confinement", as the most cautious scientists wish.

Several scenarios are currently being examined by the executive concerning the course of the next few days.

"Decisions will be taken this week," Prime Minister Jean Castex argued on Monday.