• According to an Elabe poll for BFMTV, 57% of French people are still worried about the spread of the coronavirus;

    it is 10 points lower than on August 20.

  • Good news that goes hand in hand with the habits taken in recent months, and the fact that the astonishment of 2020 is no longer.

  • But the epidemic is far from over, warn specialists, who call not to relax vigilance.

A year and a half after the onset of the coronavirus epidemic, several lockdowns and months of restrictions, would the French have gotten used to living with the virus?

According to an Elabe poll for BFMTV * published this Thursday, they are in any case less and less worried about the spread of Covid-19.

While the authorities worried at the end of last winter of a "third wave which would be that of mental health", this finding may seem positive.

But specialists recall that the epidemic is still there and warn about the relaxation of barrier gestures.

Habit and weariness

According to this Elabe poll, therefore, 57% of French people say they are still worried about the spread of the coronavirus in France; it is 10 points lower than on August 20. Also according to the polling institute, this is one of the lowest levels recorded since the start of the health crisis, similar to that reached after the first confinement, in June 2020 (56%). This is good news when we know the harmful effects of confinements and restrictions on the mental health of citizens. During the first confinement, the proportion of the population evoking depressive states hovered around 19%, before falling to less than 11% during the summer of 2020, and reaching a record level of 22.7% in February 2021.

So has the Covid-19 really entered our daily life? For Laurent Chambaud, director of the School of Advanced Studies in Public Health (EHESP), there is no doubt. “There is necessarily the question of habit. We have been living for a year and a half with this virus, there is no longer astonishment as at the beginning, we are no longer in the total unknown ", pleads the specialist. For Didier Guillemot, epidemiologist at the Institut Pasteur and at the University of Versailles-Saint Quentin, the French have had to learn to live with the virus, because it will not disappear anytime soon: “We are not still out of the epidemic, it is not over, we are heading towards vaccine boosts, new variants. It's pretty good that people are learning to live ”.

If some have taken the fold of the epidemic, others have returned to a form of lassitude, believes Robert Zuili, clinical psychologist: "For some people, there is a form of lassitude, it has been going on for months. and the accumulated frustrations require a need for relaxation which takes the worries into the background.

What predominates for them is to find a normal life ”, develops the psychologist.

Vaccination reassures

For Robert Zulli, it is first of all the current epidemic situation that reassures the French: “When you are worried, you have to have elements of reassurance.

Today, even with the variants, the figures are stabilizing, they are reassuring, the vaccination is working, the fourth wave does not explode.

It gives people the feeling that the pressure is less ”.

"The pressure is not as strong as in 2020 or early 2021, the economy is gradually recovering, there is no containment in sight, there are no more daily points on the figures of the epidemic… These are improvements which contribute to the decrease in anxiety, ”adds Laurent Chambaud.

And if the figures of the epidemic are scrutinized, it is above all the progress of vaccination, and its effectiveness, which reassures the French, decrypts Viviane Kovess-Masféty, psychiatrist and epidemiologist: "Vaccination is a factor -key, we know that it protects against serious forms, that it limits transmissions.

It completely transforms the perception of the epidemic compared to last year for the French, there are less worries about being contaminated or contaminating loved ones, colleagues, ”analyzes the specialist.

Do not let go of barrier gestures

But if the decrease in anxiety is good, the relaxation of barrier gestures is less so.

"That people are a little more relaxed, that they live things in a less stressed way vis-à-vis the virus, it is good news, but the epidemic is not over, it is absolutely necessary to maintain the barrier gestures, distancing, wearing a mask in public places, ”insists Didier Guillemot.

Thus, according to Robert Zuili, some French people risk slacking off a little too much. "Those who have become accustomed to the virus, who have accepted the constraints better, who have resigned themselves, it is those who will go the least towards relaxation, they will continue to respect barrier gestures". Conversely, explains the psychologist, "those who experienced the restrictions less well, who felt deprived of their freedoms, who were almost angry, they will want to regain their freedom and present the risk of too great a relaxation. ". Hence his warning about the “swing effect”. “You have to know how far we go in the relaxation. Do we keep in mind that there are always risks or do we give up everything? ". The answer is in the question.

* Survey conducted on August 31 and September 1 by Internet with a sample of 1,000 people using the quota method.

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