Members of the Covid-19 commission of inquiry began their work on Tuesday with the aim of learning the lessons of the crisis. The first exchange took place in front of the Director General of Health, Jérôme Salomon, who notably had to return the strategic stock of masks. The government had indeed been accused of having concealed stocks of masks at the height of the epidemic and when caregivers were short of them.
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On this subject, Jérôme Salomon had to give an explanation. He assured that in 2018, when he arrived at the head of the DGS, the stocks numbered 754 million masks. But an audit showed that a large part of these masks were unusable.
A stock in "bad condition"
The Director General of Health spoke of an "audit which made a report which surprised us enormously", revealing "the bad state of this stock". According to him, the stock was "massively, mainly made up of poor quality lots".
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We therefore had to throw away these expired and perforated masks and place, in October 2018, a new order for 100 million masks. In January 2020, when the virus appeared, Jérôme Salomon redid the accounts: this time, France had a stock much lower than in 2018. It was made up of 115 million masks.
Mask orders that did not avoid the shortage
On Tuesday, before the deputies of the commission of inquiry, Jérôme Salomon explained that the State had quickly made two orders to anticipate the epidemic and a shortage which nevertheless fueled the discontent of the French.
In the coming weeks, the commission of inquiry will hear several officials responsible for managing the Covid-19 crisis, such as the Minister of Health (and his predecessors) or the president of the Scientific Council, Professor Delfraissy.