Only a few days before the deconfinement test. Almost two months after being put under a bell to limit the progression of the Covid-19 pandemic, France is preparing to come back to life, from May 11. The daily life of the French will be very different from the one they knew before March 17, but they will be able to resume their work and a semblance of social life with the inevitable threat that contagions will start again.

"The risk of a second wave, which would hit a weakened hospital fabric, which would impose a reconfiguration, which would ruin the efforts and the sacrifices made (...), is a serious risk", moreover warned the Prime Minister Édouard Philippe, Tuesday April 28, during the presentation of his deconfinement plan.

>> Read: Deconfinement: for some mayors, a return to school on May 11, "it doesn't make sense"

For if confinement has made it possible to limit the massive influx of patients into hospitals, and in particular the most serious cases, it has above all prevented the coronavirus from spreading among the population for which collective immunity is unthinkable. The Institut Pasteur thus estimates that the proportion of French people who were infected on May 11 was less than 6%.

Under these conditions, is the second wave inevitable? Experts do not agree with each other. Several modeling studies in different countries find a second epidemic wave "very likely" and "no earlier than late August", but it could also be "later in the fall, in October or November," said the virologist. Anne Goffard, April 26, on France Inter.

"Identify the sick, identify the people they may have contaminated and isolate them"

Abroad, the German virologist Christian Drosten, government adviser to Angela Merkel, nicknamed "Doctor Corona", even warned against a second wave even more powerful than the first because of the slow spread of the virus on the throughout the territory in the coming weeks. "Then we would no longer have this imbalance between the small individual places in North Rhine-Westphalia, where it was introduced after carnival or something like that, and other places, in other places, where there are practically no infections. Instead, we would suddenly be surprised that the virus is triggered everywhere at once, "he said on April 16 on German public radio NDR.

But for the former director general of health, William Dab, quoted by the Journal du Dimanche on May 3, the arrival of a second wave "is not inevitable if we do the necessary epidemiological work" to "identify the sick, identify the people they may have contaminated and isolate them to break the chain of transmission. " Field work that involves enough men and tests.

Same story for Bernard Castan, infectious disease specialist and secretary general of the French-language infectious pathology society (SPILF), interviewed on Wednesday May 6 on the France 24 antenna, who said he was "optimistic if the rules are respected". "My concern comes from the ability of citizens to respect them, in particular where it cannot be regulated during family reunification," he adds.

THE CASTAN INTERVIEW

Citizen behavior "key to success" of deconfinement

The pursuit of "barrier gestures" (physical distance, hand washing) combined with the wearing of the mask will indeed be decisive in order to keep the virus under control. "The behavior of our fellow citizens is the key to success, to one day victory against this pandemic," said the national coordinator of the decontainment strategy, Jean Castex, during a hearing on Wednesday May 6, before the Senate Law Commission.

"It seems to me to observe a small relaxation and it is not good because if it is prolonged in phase of exit from confinement, if one does not respect the barrier gestures (...), one will risk the relapse", a- he warned, adding that a "restructuring plan" was planned if necessary.

>> Read: Tensions between Emmanuel Macron and Édouard Philippe: a classic from the Fifth Republic

Because the end of confinement in France without a strong policy of barrier gestures could result in a total death toll of 200,000, against around 165,000 deaths with physical distancing and 85,000 by adding the wearing of the mask, according to a modeling carried out by Public Health Expertise. To date, according to the latest official report of May 5, it has amounted to 25,531 dead.

The reproduction rate of the virus, called R0, which measures the number of new people infected by each infected person, will therefore be closely scrutinized by the authorities. Estimated at 3.3 without control measures, it fell to 0.5 in France with containment, according to estimates. The challenge will be to keep this R0 below 1 so that the number of new cases continues to decrease.

With AFP

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