Auditioned Tuesday by the Senate, Olivier Véran assured that there was "more virus in a tablespoon of seawater than there are Europeans in Europe".
A way of remembering that we live surrounded by viruses, without them necessarily making us sick.
20 Minutes
interviewed Curtis Suttle, a Canadian researcher specializing in marine viruses who made this comparison.
Culture broth for every sea bath?
This is the image summoned by Olivier Véran, during his hearing, Tuesday in the Senate, on the bill to extend the health pass.
The Minister of Health argued that “there are more viruses in a tablespoon of seawater than there are Europeans in Europe”.
His statement can be seen in the 41st minute of this video.
A comparison
shock about a possible evolution of Covid-19.
Evoking several scenarios on the future of the pandemic, Olivier Véran thus argued that the virus could become inactive and that we would come to live with it as we live "with thousands and thousands of viruses", which do not make us all sick.
Like under the ocean, then.
Where does this image come from?
Is she fair?
20 Minutes
interviewed Canadian researcher Curtis Suttle, who made this comparison.
A high concentration in sea water
We don't always imagine it, but viruses are indeed abundant in seawater. “In coastal seawater, there are around at least 10 million viruses per milliliter of seawater. in the open ocean, far, far from the land, there are at least a million viruses per milliliter, ”says the professor at the University of British Columbia.
A scientific expedition, carried out between 2009 and 2013 with the team of the schooner Tara, had identified 200,000 viruses in the oceans of the planet.
These viruses play an extremely important role in the regulation of marine life.
“The oceans are almost entirely microbial,” says Curtis Suttle.
These microbes produce half of the planet's oxygen, and viruses kill about 20% of these microbes every day.
Therefore, they really complete the cycle of life and death in the ocean.
If you take viruses out of the ocean, things stop developing, because all life depends on recycling resources and the ability to acquire them.
"
These viruses also have a role to play in the absorption and emission of CO2.
The image used by Olivier Véran, bringing together these marine viruses and SARS Cov-2, does it make sense?
The Canadian specialist stresses that there is a very wide variety of viruses and that nobody knows how the one responsible for the current pandemic will evolve: “We are unable to predict the direction things will take.
So it could be a virus that continues to circulate, like the common cold virus or the flu, which is a terrible virus, but which circulates every year among populations.
"
It is "possible that this new coronavirus is similar" and "that it ends up establishing a kind of relationship with us", adds the specialist.
“But I would never go so far as to say that we should just let the virus go and see where it takes us, because the consequences could be absolutely devastating.
"
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