Illustration of a coronavirus test.
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Pixabay
Every Friday, Santé Publique France decrypts its weekly update on the coronavirus situation in France with the press.
Incidence, deaths, hospitalizations, vaccinations… These indicators make it possible to see the evolutions, week after week, of the epidemic.
What questions this week is the stabilization of all indicators - contaminations such as hospitalizations, even in real life - while the new variants promised an explosion in incidence.
A paradoxical situation.
While the English, South African and Brazilian variants are spreading in France, the latest indicators from Public Health France reveal a stabilization of contamination.
And even a slight drop in resuscitation admissions.
Finally good news, which could comfort the government in its decision not to completely confine for the moment?
Incidence and stable hospitalizations
According to the latest weekly epidemiological point published Thursday evening, contaminations peak at 20,000 cases per day from February 1 to 7, 2021. Either "a maintenance at a very high level of the circulation of SARS-CoV-2", estimates the weekly point of Public Health France.
In this first week of February, the incidence rate was 207 per 100,000 inhabitants, a slight decrease compared to the previous week (- 4%).
The contagiousness rate remained stable (6.3% against 6.7% the previous week).
Same rather reassuring development on the side of hospitals: hospitalizations remain stable.
On February 9, there were 27,677 people hospitalized, including 3,342 in intensive care.
"The number of hospitalizations remains close to that of the previous week and we see a drop in intensive care admissions (-2%) after four weeks of increase", analyzes Delphine Viriot, epidemiologist at Public Health France.
A breath of fresh air for caregivers, on deck since March 2020?
Not really.
Because despite this meager improvement, "we realize that a tension has persisted on the hospital system for many weeks and that the number of hospitalized patients has tended to increase since the beginning of January," warns Delphine Viriot.
Second perspective: these national data conceal regional and even departmental disparities.
The regions where the tension on hospitals remains very strong are Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, Ile-de-France, Hauts-de-France and Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes.
And Public Health France confirms that the indicators are worrying on the Moselle side, where Olivier Véran went this Friday.
The three new variants continue to spread
However, this stabilization of the circulation of the coronavirus questions as the three new variants, which make the disease more contagious, continue to spread in France.
Indeed, the preliminary results of the second Flash survey, carried out on January 27, confirm an increase in the proportion of suspected variants: around 17.5% for the three new variants, which is now called V1 (English variant). , V2 (South African) or V3 (Brazilian).
The sequencing of these tests is still in progress and we should know the consolidated figures next week.
The first flash study carried out on January 7 and 8 revealed the presence of the English variant in 3.3% of positive tests.
Two epidemics in one?
How to explain this situation of equilibrium?
"We have no scientific data which invalidates the greater transmissibility of the three strains," specifies Daniel Lévy-Bruhl, epidemiologist at Public Health France.
Rather, this stabilization of the incidence is interpreted as follows: a combination of strains of the 2020 coronavirus with a reproduction rate (the R) below 1 [which means that an infected person infects less than one person] and a small contribution from the new variants, with an R greater than 1. The two phenomena counterbalance each other.
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A hypothesis which would confirm the expression used by Olivier Véran of "epidemic within the epidemic".
This balance, certainly precarious, could reassure the government, which has chosen to maintain the curfew at 6 p.m., but not to re-define.
Gabriel Attal was also rather optimistic by assuring Wednesday, after the Council of Ministers, that "there is indeed a way to avoid reconfinement".
Vigilance, it's the holidays
But is not re-defining reasonable when many doctors fear an explosion in cases in March?
“There are several ways of seeing things, nuance Daniel Lévy-Bruhl.
On the one hand, the worst is not certain.
On the other hand, from a theoretical point of view, it is difficult to see why the diffusion of variants as observed in other countries would not be applicable here.
Unfortunately, it seems to us that the most probable scenario remains an increasing contribution of the new variants and, inexorably, an increase in the mean R.
Knowing that we are already on a high plateau of hospitalizations.
Stabilization does not appear to us to contradict this scenario.
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A message not easy to get across: despite the stable figures from Public Health France, the social restrictions that have lasted for months and the barrier gestures must be maintained.
Especially with the February holidays, which for some have started a week ago, and which for others begin this Friday evening.
A period of increasing travel, families get together and spend time together indoors due to the ice age ...
“We must ensure that the virus does not go on vacation with us, summarizes Laëtitia Huiart, scientific director at Public Health France.
But it is true that the concern was very present before Christmas and that we did not have an explosion of contaminations in January.
The population has shown itself responsible.
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Find our file
Once again, it is difficult to predict the evolution of this epidemic which has not finished surprising us.
Monitoring the spread of new variants will continue to concern epidemiologists and politicians.
A third Flash survey will be carried out on Tuesday, February 16, and should produce a region-by-region photograph of the situation before the end of February.
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