• France is currently affected by a fourth epidemic wave of coronavirus.

  • It is caused by the Delta variant, much more contagious than the previous strains, which causes an explosion of new contaminations.

  • It remains to be seen whether the progress of the vaccination campaign will succeed in preventing this fourth wave from causing a large number of serious forms of the disease.

She arrived earlier than expected.

Initially predicted for the start of the school year, the fourth epidemic wave is now hitting France, with around 20,000 new cases recorded every day, ten times more than just a month ago.

"The fourth wave, we are there", confirmed Wednesday the head of government, Jean Castex, at 13h of TF1.

In question, the progression of the Delta variant, much more contagious than the preceding strains.

While it was only present in 0.2% of the positive samples sequenced just a few weeks ago, this variant identified in India today represents "83.5% of new contaminations", according to the latest figures from Public health France.

An ultra-contagious variant which urges the government to accelerate the vaccination campaign and which poses a new framework for this fourth wave.

A "steeper" wave with a meteoric rise in contamination

"We have an increase in the circulation of the virus of around 150% over a week: we have never experienced this" since the start of the pandemic, the Minister of Health, Olivier Véran, alarmed Tuesday.

“We are in a fourth wave which does not look like the previous ones because the slope is much steeper.

We crossed [Wednesday] the double of the threshold of alert of our country, added the spokesman of the government, Gabriel Attal, Thursday on France Inter.

Especially since we are currently observing an outbreak of contaminations among 20-30 year olds, a less vaccinated age group, in particular in Île-de-France and in the coastal regions, where tourists are numerous.

This is particularly the case in Occitania, Toulouse and Montpellier, where the incidence rate is exploding and exceeds 200 contaminations per 100,000 inhabitants.

And where wearing a mask outside is mandatory again.

"All epidemiological indicators indicate an exceptional recovery," observed the Regional Health Agency.

The authorities fear a repetition of the scenario of the summer of 2020, with contaminations which resume in young people - what we observe today - then spread to the oldest and most vulnerable.

"We are on the climb curve"

This scenario could lead to an increase in hospitalizations, especially among the unvaccinated, with intensive care services saturated as in previous waves. "The impact on the healthcare system is the real question, the only question", estimated the President of the Scientific Council, Jean-François Delfraissy, Thursday in the Senate, during the examination of the law on the extension of the pass sanitary.

While the curve for new hospitalizations linked to Covid-19 has been steadily declining since May, "the decline has slowed down, and in five regions - especially those in the South - we can see that there is starting to be an increase in the number of patients in shifts, ”Olivier Véran stressed Thursday before the senators. “We have finished the downhill curve and we are in the uphill curve (…) Will it go far and hard? I don't know how to answer you, ”he continued. Over the last seven days, 1,550 Covid patients have been hospitalized, including nearly 300 in shifts. It was half as much (750 and 150 respectively) two weeks earlier.

To find out what to expect in the coming weeks, France is logically monitoring what is happening in countries where the Delta variant is a few weeks in advance. "In England, we see an increase in the number of hospitalizations, which are not for the moment in intensive care because vaccines protect against the occurrence of serious forms", indicated Professor Delfraissy. And "in Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, for the moment, the burden of care is not increasing much, even if it is increasing", added Olivier Véran.

Taking all these parameters into account, Professor Delfraissy apprehends "a complex, very complex situation" in French hospitals for the second half of August.

A summer timing which would be doubly problematic, warned the Minister of Health, since "it is the most difficult month to organize hospitals, which adds complexity to the complexity".

The (precarious) counterweight to vaccination

But unlike previous waves, this act IV occurs as the vaccination campaign progresses and even experiences a significant rebound. The announcement on July 12 by the Head of State of the extension of the health pass - now required to go to restaurants, the cinema and soon on trains - has pushed millions of French people hesitant to take the plunge. . Since then, more than 3.7 million French people have made an appointment via the Doctolib platform.

And the head of government intends to continue this acceleration, he who indicated that 96% of infected people identified on Tuesday were not vaccinated. The objective: to prevent the hospital and sheaves from being overwhelmed and that new health restrictions, liable to upset the country's economy, are taken. Jean Castex has thus announced that he wants to reach 50 million first-time vaccines at the end of August and no longer 40 million. "It is a very ambitious objective, but which shows that we will have understood the gravity of the situation", he insisted, promising the opening of 5 million new vaccination appointments "within 15 days".

Because even with the Delta variant, vaccination reduces the risk of contracting Covid-19, and, even more, that of developing a serious form of the disease.

The vaccines therefore guarantee that a certain number of contaminations will not turn into hospitalizations.

However, with this contagious variant, which generates a viral load 1,260 times higher than the classic strain of the virus, this may not be enough, the scientists point out.

“Let's imagine that there are five times fewer hospitalizations: nothing excludes that with this highly contagious variant, we have five times more infections than with the previous viruses.

In which case, we could have an equivalent wave, ”feared Olivier Véran.

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