INTERVIEW
Speaking has been increasing for several days to alert the appearance of a possible second wave of the coronavirus epidemic in France. Thursday morning, the Scientific Council thus deplored the growing non-respect of social distancing and barrier gestures. "We must be extremely vigilant, because the virus circulates at low noise", confirms on Europe 1 Professor Eric Caumes, head of the infectious diseases department at the Pitié-Salpêtrière hospital. "We manage to control things, but we have to be very careful."
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"The virus has been circulating for a few days"
To support his claims, the professor relies in particular on recent analyzes of wastewater in Paris. "Wastewater is very interesting. It allows you to have an idea of the degree of circulation of the virus in a given population. If we refer to wastewater in the Paris region, well the virus did not circulate at the end containment and it has started to circulate for a few days ", specifies Eric Caumes, who also talks about his own observations. "It corresponds with the impression that we have in our clinical services, especially in my hospital, where we see patients arriving with acute Covid, when we have not seen it for several weeks."
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The coronavirus is therefore indeed still active on French territory. "We never said he was gone," said Eric Caumes. "Most of us have never said that the epidemic was behind us. On the contrary, it is likely that the largest part of the epidemic is still ahead of us. Besides, the WHO alerted for to say that we had not yet reached the epidemic peak. Even if the vision of the WHO was global, we can say that in France it is exactly the same. "
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And the consequence is that the second wave could hit France before fall or winter. "We all have roughly the same fear, that is to say a second wave that occurs too early, and which is of too great an amplitude," confirms the doctor. "We feared a second wave rather this winter, at the same time as the other respiratory infections, and in particular at the same time as the flu, or so at the end of autumn. And it is true that we have a fear - it remains in a state of fear - that it is a little earlier. "