An antigen test in Paris, February 5, 2021. -

AFP

"Stricter" measures will have to be put in place in France, an official from Public Health France alerted this Friday.

In particular, the spread of more transmissible variants of the coronavirus, which could saturate hospitals. 

"It is probable that the effective R", the reproduction rate which measures the dynamics of the epidemic, "in the near future will go well above 1 and therefore that more stringent measures than those in place today will become necessary, ”said Daniel Lévy-Bruhl, head of the respiratory infections unit of the public health agency, during a weekly press briefing.

The disturbing spread of variants

This predictable increase in the reproduction rate is linked to the “further spread of variants” that have emerged in the UK, South Africa and Brazil.

The proportion of cases suspected of being one of these three more contagious variants amounted, as of January 27, to 14% of the total cases detected, according to still preliminary results published on Thursday.

As of January 7-8, the proportion of the British variant had been measured at 3.3% of positive cases.

"The dynamics highlighted" between these two surveys "unfortunately confirms the gradual spread of these variants", observes Daniel Lévy-Bruhl.

The final results, from the sequencing of the suspected cases, should be available next week, according to SpF.

Last week, the reproduction rate of Sars-Cov-2 slowed down a bit compared to the previous week, but remained slightly above 1, a threshold which marks an acceleration of the epidemic.

Despite the plateau, hospitals "will fill up"

“As long as we have an R greater than 1, we cannot last long like that, if only because the level of incidence and hospital burden today is already high”, with nearly 28,000 patients hospitalized, including over 3,200 in intensive care, underlines Daniel Lévy-Bruhl.

Even a reproduction rate of 1, this "will not be enough to get us out of the woods", judges the epidemiologist.

Indeed, this would mean "a constant number of new hospitalizations", but due to the length of the patients' stay, "the number of new hospitalizations is greater than the number of discharges" and therefore "the hospitals will fill up".

With 143,325 new cases detected last week, the circulation of the coronavirus has stabilized "at a very high level", notes Public Health France in its weekly bulletin.

The positivity rate for screening tests fell from 7.1% to 6.7%, new hospitalizations remained stable at around 11,100, and intensive care admissions increased 6% to 1,800.

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