• France recently announced that it is setting up a mandatory test for travelers from China, while the Chinese authorities are accused of giving vague figures on the Covid-19 epidemic.

  • At the same time, a new recombinant variant has become dominant in the United States.

    But no action has yet been taken.

  • For the doctor Michaël Rochoy, it is the whole response of the French authorities which is failing in the face of the virus, in particular with the wearing of the mask which he would again like to make compulsory in public transport.

They expire faster than fast fashion.

The variants of Covid-19 multiply and follow one another at a very difficult speed to follow, to the point that, for a year, almost all versions of the virus have still been called Omicron.

However, France was swept away by waves BA.1, BA.2, BA.5 this summer and is now contaminated by BQ.1.1.

In addition, faced with the explosion of cases in China, and faced with the lack of transparency on the official figures, France now imposes a compulsory test on all travelers from the Middle Empire, which has its own strains.

But other forms of the virus also circulate in Western countries.

And, for a few days, the “American” variant seems to have become a new strong competitor.

What is the risk of seeing new variants arrive in France?

Can we avoid their circulation and their possible recombinations?

20 Minutes

takes stock.

Where is the epidemic in France currently?

There has been a majority strain since December, BQ.1.1, which descends directly from Omicron's BA.5 strain.

Nearly 23,000 cases have been confirmed over the past seven days, in a country that no longer tests itself much.

“We are facing a triple epidemic”, with the flu and bronchiolitis, reminds

general practitioner Michaël Rochoy for

20 Minutes .

Besides sick people who don't go to the doctor, it can be difficult, based on symptoms alone, to tell the difference between these viruses.

In addition, "we remain around 150 deaths per day, and there are not many diseases which cause 40,000 deaths per year", warns the doctor.

What are the risks if new variants arrive in France?

Since the start of the Covid-19 epidemic, the variants have replaced each other rather than added to each other.

Exit, for example, the Delta variant, which accounted for 99% of cases at the end of 2021, which rules out the idea of ​​a parallel epidemic.

"The virus mutates randomly, and sometimes this gives it an advantage over other variants to transmit more easily or escape vaccination", explains Michaël Rochoy, also a researcher in epidemiology and member of the collective "Du Côté de Science ".

“China did not use the same vaccines as us”, he recalls, and the variant which developed there to resist the vaccine “would probably not be effective here”, according to him.

On the other hand, "the selective advantage is more probable in the American variant", confronted with the same vaccines as those used in France and which is already a recombinant, that is to say a crossing of two variants to keep the best. strengths.

But that does not mean that the American XBB.1.5 will integrate the good reproduction capacity of the French BQ1.1 to supplant it.

“We cannot predict what will become of a variant”, tempers the doctor, while imagining the extreme case of a “totally asymptomatic variant, but fatal, after several days”.

Plague Inc.

fans

will enjoy.

Can we fight against these new variants?

“We cannot stop a variant,” says Michaël Rochoy.

Despite a very limited number of cases, the “American” variant is indeed already present in France.

And the doctor wonders about the relevance of border controls: "it is not by taking the temperature of travelers that we will avoid anything", especially if people have been contaminated on the plane and do not develop symptoms until later.

Moreover, “why act on the planes that come from China and not the others”?



“We are a house burning everywhere, and we are worried that a person could bring a flame from the outside”, image the doctor.

He pleads for a strengthening of health measures in general.

"Wearing a mask reduces the replication rate by 20%" and also helps fight the flu, he argues.

“It should be compulsory”, at least in transport and closed places, “if we want to curb transmission and reduce the impact on hospitals”, asks the general practitioner.

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  • Health

  • Coronavirus

  • Covid-19

  • China

  • Flu

  • epidemic

  • Variant Omicron