Will the Christmas holidays have an impact on the Covid-19 epidemic?

• 3, 2, 1 ... let's go!

  The Christmas school holidays begin in France for two weeks.

• Two weeks of respite on the coronavirus front?

  Between the closure of schools and the reduction of employees at work, the magic of Christmas will perhaps operate on the health figures.

• Mistrust all the same.

  Christmas could also hold some nasty surprises.

Long live the wind, long live the wind, long live the winter wind.

Snowballs and New Year's Day, may the Covid-19 leave us alone ", could sing the schoolchildren of France, on Christmas vacation for two weeks this Friday evening.

For more than a year, each period of leave has raised the same question: what impact will the holidays have on the coronavirus epidemic?

And, as for the winter wind hummed above, the hypotheses blow hot and cold between an epidemic lull or a more substantial rebound.

Bet on the end of recess

For two weeks, more than 12 million students will no longer see each other in school or in the canteen. Two of the places where the virus is transmitted the most, and whose mixing of students is therefore strongly suspected to be responsible for the epidemic outbreak in children. For this reason, several nations have decided to close schools several days ahead of the holiday calendar, such as Belgium or Denmark. It is for the same reason that Emmanuel Macron closed schools on April 6, 2021 for three weeks.

These two weeks could therefore prevent the 6-10 year-olds, a segment of the population in whom the incidence is close to 1,100 [more than one child in 100 has tested positive in a week], from continuing to rub shoulders with each other and exchange their germs at recess, knowing that the average incidence in France is almost twice lower, established at 515 this Friday, and 210 children under 10 were also hospitalized last week.

Childhood vaccination, the solution?

The 6-10 year olds are all the more fragile as children under 12 are not eligible for the vaccine in France, except toddlers "at risk" and this, since December 15.

However, vaccination reduces the risk of infection and transmission, in addition to greatly reducing the risk of hospitalization and severe forms.

Only 0.2% of children under 12 are vaccinated [cases with multiple comorbidities], compared to 79.83% of 12-18 year olds.

All other age categories in France are more than 87% vaccinated at a minimum, according to data from VaccinTracker.

The holiday season should be conducive to vaccination.

The third dose vaccination

running at full speed, with 740,963 booster doses injected in 24 hours and an average of over 600,000 daily doses per week.

Nearly 15 million French people have a complete vaccination course.

At this rate, on January 15, 2022, the date on which having a health pass will require three doses of vaccine, 35.4 million French people could have obtained their booster.

Employees at rest

The Christmas holidays also have the advantage of being a period of vacation massively followed by employees. The latter are shut down much more than during other school holidays. "This should therefore limit the chains of transmission in companies", assures Anne Sénequier, co-director of the Observatory for Global Health and co-author of the book

(Editions Eyrolles, 2021). Still, the end-of-year holidays are also much more conducive to family and intergenerational gatherings, which makes experts in the health crisis fear the worst, including Hélène Rossinot, doctor of public health.

Currently, the incidence in people over 65 is declining.

A figure which represents excellent news given that these seniors represent 70% of hospitalizations and 50% of critical care since the start of the health crisis.

This population is likely to associate, at least on December 25, with children and young adults, the incidence of which is much higher and increasing.

Enough to fear a very bad Christmas in the event of too many contaminations of our seniors.

Omicron, the drunk guest

Such family clusters were already feared last year. No epidemic rebound had however been observed. “The French might think that since nothing happened in 2020, it means that Christmas is risk-free and let our guard down. However, nothing happened precisely because the French were careful, ”warns Anne Sénequier. And to add that if Christmas 2020 went well with the so-called "original" strain of the coronavirus, France now also had to deal with the Delta and Omicron variants, much more contagious.

Especially since last Christmas, the government authorized self-containment of children a few days before school holidays, leaving enough time for those infected at school to no longer be transmissible on December 24-25.

For the moment, there is no indication that such a measure can be reproduced.

"The children will therefore leave school to arrive directly with their families, without any protective" airlock ", worries Hélène Rossinot.

For the doctor, the instructions are clear: "It will be necessary to be extremely vigilant about barrier gestures and to use self-tests as much as possible, to try not to contaminate the most fragile members of the family.

The fate of the Christmas holidays depends above all on this.

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• Christmas

• Health

• Covid 19

• Coronavirus

• epidemic

• Vaccination

• School vacation

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