What is this committee of researchers advising the executive on the Covid-19?

• On March 11, faced with the spread of the coronavirus epidemic in France, the government chose to appoint a committee of researchers to help it manage its health crisis.
• This scientific council is made up of eleven specialists, doctors in infectiology and immunology of course, but also a sociologist and an anthropologist.
• Its opinions are public and it meets every day. However, the government is not obliged to comply with its recommendations.

"Confidence in science. "It is this principle that guides government action to address this coronavirus crisis, said Emmanuel Macron in his address to the French on Monday evening. To "listen to those who know", a Scientific Council was installed by the Ministry of Health on March 11. This group of researchers is closely associated with executive decisions to deal with the epidemic, it will be consulted in particular on the postponement of the second round of municipal elections, said government spokeswoman Sibeth Ndiaye on Tuesday noon. Who makes it up, and how is it associated with political authorities?

[#Coronavirus] Meeting yesterday of the scientific committee at the Élysée. Public health France has mobilized all of its expertise in epidemiology and prevention to support the public authorities and guide them in the choice of management measures to be implemented # Covid19 pic.twitter.com/ph0ICJsgAF

11 members, mainly doctors

This committee has a chairman and ten members, including two women. It mainly brings together doctors, but also an anthropologist and a sociologist. Jean-François Delfraissy, 71, chairs this council. This specialist in immunology has been president of the National Consultative Ethics Committee (CCNE) since 2016 and is therefore used to being consulted by political authorities on questions linking health, ethics and society. He also headed the National Agency for Research on AIDS and Viral Hepatitis (ANRS) from 2005. Jean-François Delfraissy had already been contacted by the government during an epidemic. It was in 2014, for Ebola. The doctor then had the interdepartmental Ebola "task force", specifies Inserm in his biography.

The members of the committee he chairs are mainly experts in epidemiology and infectious diseases. They "were chosen for their recognized expertise on the subject, in a multidisciplinary approach", assured Olivier Véran this Tuesday during a telephone press conference. Denis Malvy is a specialist in tropical diseases in Bordeaux, Didier Raoult led the first clinical trial with hydroxychloroquine against the coronavirus in Marseille and Yazdan Yazdanpanah is head of the infectious and tropical diseases department at Bichat hospital in Paris. It is one of the first French hospitals to have received patients infected with Covid-19. He is also an expert with the WHO.

The committee also includes the virologist Bruno Lina, director of the National Reference Center for Influenza in Lyon, the epidemiologist of the Institut Pasteur Arnaud Fontanet, Lila Bouadma, a doctor specialized in resuscitation, and the city doctor Pierre-Louis Druais, founder of the College of General Medicine.

There is also a model epidemiologist, Simon Cauchemez. Finally, two social scientists come to complete this team and bring it an “interdisciplinary” touch: the anthropologist Laetitia Atlani-Duault, who did a thesis on HIV prevention, and the sociologist Daniel Benamouzig, specialized in politics and economics. of health.

How does it work ?

"The committee meets physically or by phone every day" since March 11, said its president, Jean-François Delfraissy, on Tuesday at the same press conference. "Completely independent", it can be seized by the Ministry of Health, but also self-seize a question. The committee also draws on the work of foreign researchers, sometimes unpublished, and also receives outside guests.

For the sake of transparency, this committee has decided to make its opinions public. Three notices are already online on the Ministry of Health website, dated March 12, 14 and 16.

What is this committee for?

The closure of schools, the maintenance of the first round of municipal elections, then the confinement announced on Monday by Emmanuel Macron ... For all these measures, the Scientific Council was consulted. His work informs Emmanuel Macron and the government. But "the decision remains political, the Council is there to guide it," insisted Olivier Véran. For the moment, the government has always followed the researchers' recommendations.

Thus, the minister clarified that he had been able to seize the committee "in emergency", Saturday March 14, to ask him what were the best strategies to contain the epidemic. The committee then approved the continuation of the first round, as it had done on March 12. He considered that if the poll was organized "in reinforced hygienic conditions", the holding of the poll was no more risky than the maintenance of "essential daily activities, like shopping".

On Monday, the committee ended up recommending "strict generalized confinement along the lines of Italy", throughout the territory. In this context of confinement, he also considered it "inappropriate" to maintain the second round of municipal elections. An opinion followed by the Head of State who announced a restriction on travel in the evening, and the postponement of the poll.

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• Covid 19
• Coronavirus
• Government