Despite the seventh wave of Covid-19 affecting France, no worries about the health system.

In any case, this is the opinion of the President of the Scientific Council, Jean-François Delfraissy, according to whom the healthcare system “will hold up” this summer against the BA.5 variant.

The professor also predicts the peak of the seventh wave for “next week” in Ile-de-France.

“It feels like the acceleration rate is dropping.

We are going to have an impact on the healthcare system which will be rather at the end of July but which could be controlled, ”he said, at the microphone of France Inter.

He further recalled that the Omicron sub-variant, BA.5, is “very transmissible” but “is not more severe”.

The Scientific Council, chaired by Jean-François Delfraissy for more than two years, disappears at the end of the month: "It is planned that there will be a new structure which replaces it, and as I indicated, I wish to stop the presidency at the end of July" #le69Inter pic.twitter.com/xhZtXF1Wgv

– France Inter (@franceinter) July 11, 2022


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According to him, “we are currently at around 1,100 or 1,200 classic hospitalizations per day.

In March, we reached 1,800 and in January around 2,800, 3,000 so we will reach 1,800, maybe even exceed them a little ”.

Tensions to be expected

“At equal level, we have a hospital system which is tired (…), we will have a lot of population movement on the coast, Languedoc, the South-West coast, a virus which will continue to circulate and an offer of care which is going to be weak because there will be the holidays of carers and carers contaminated, ”he continued.

“There will therefore be tension but normally, the healthcare system will hold up against this wave of BA.5”, he hammered.

“The latest data on the rate of seropositivity, on a number of early markers, suggest, but to be taken with caution, that there is a form of slowdown which is occurring in the Paris region, which was the region initially the most affected by the BA.5 variant”, explained Mr. Delfraissy.

This “could indicate that we might have a peak in the Paris region which can be reached next week”.

A fourth dose for the elderly

“The most important thing”, according to Mr. Delfraissy, “is to protect the oldest and most at risk people”.

“I advise the oldest and most fragile people to have their fourth vaccination now,” he advised.

The Commission and the health agencies of the European Union also recommended on Monday a second booster dose of vaccines against Covid-19 for everyone over 60, instead of 80 so far.

Asked about wearing a mask, he confirmed that it has “effectiveness” but after more than two years of the pandemic, “the discourse has changed on the global management of the pandemic, with European countries which have chosen this strategy of living with the virus and the variants”.

  • Health

  • Covid-19

  • epidemic

  • Virus

  • Hospital