Isolation will be imposed at the end of the month to travelers from the United Kingdom, where the Indian variant is on the way to becoming the majority.

The strain, particularly contagious, is little established in France and the authorities are doing everything for what the rest, until the vaccines, effective according to several studies, are better distributed.

From May 31, France will impose "compulsory isolation" on travelers from the United Kingdom, where the Indian strain of the coronavirus becomes the majority.

Non-resident foreign nationals will now have to justify a "compelling reason" for travel, and anyone presenting a negative PCR or antigen test of less than 48 hours, and not 72 hours.

There will certainly be no verification by the isolation authorities at the address indicated.

But it still shows that France is wary of this Indian variant.

Even if, for the moment, the situation remains under control in our territory.

>> LIVE

- Coronavirus: follow the evolution of the situation Friday, May 27

With a hundred cases, there is indeed no massive distribution in France of this Indian variant.

These are imported cases.

Clearly, these are travelers returning from India with the virus.

And there is also no cluster that is too large.

So admittedly this variant is more contagious, probably up to 50% more transmissible than the British variant.

However, there is no evidence that it is more dangerous.

"The vaccines are still very effective against the Indian variant"

"More importantly, the vaccines would remain effective against this strain. There have been articles which have been published recently which show that the vaccines still have a very high efficacy against the Indian variant", assures Yannick Simonin, virologist at Inserm .

"This is really where we have a lot of hope, it is on vaccination. What is important to know is that when we talk about vaccination, it's two doses."

>> Find the morning show of the day in replay and podcast here

According to a recent English study, the Pfizer vaccine is 93% effective against the British variant.

Against the Indian variant, the protection drops a little but remains very high, around 88%.