Jean-François Delfraissy, Chairman of the Scientific Council -

JOEL SAGET / AFP

The Scientific Council, responsible for guiding the government during the coronavirus pandemic, was joined by four new members, including a training veterinarian and a specialist in psychiatric diseases, according to a decree published in the Official Journal on Wednesday.

Seventeen people now make up this body specially created in March 2020, said its president, immunologist Jean-François Delfraissy, during an online press conference.

The entry of a child psychiatrist, "a very strong message"

These new members are Angèle Consoli, child psychiatrist at the Parisian hospital of Pitié-Salpêtrière, Thierry Lefrançois, veterinarian by training and researcher at CIRAD (Center for international cooperation in agricultural research for development) in Montpellier, Catherine Chirouze, infectious disease specialist at the CHU de Besançon and Olivier Guérin, head of the geriatrics pole of the CHU de Nice and president of the French Society of Geriatrics.

The entry of a child psychiatrist in this body is "a very strong message which shows the major interest shown (...) to all those, psychologically tested by this pandemic which lasts", estimated Dr. Consoli, during this same conference Press.

For his part, Dr Lefrançois deemed it important to "involve the human and animal health sector and the environment" to fight the pandemic.

"It is not because we are not in the media that we do not work"

In addition, the Scientific Council indicated that it had communicated three opinions to the government since the publication of the last one, on January 19.

The government "will make them public when it wishes," said Professor Delfraissy.

The delay between the transmission of these notices to the government and their publication on the website of the Ministry of Health has been criticized, since it is in particular on them that the government relies to decide on the measures to be taken.

"We do not control the time limit for publication" of these opinions by the government, recalled one of the members of the Scientific Council, the anthropologist Laëtitia Atlani-Duault.

"The Scientific Council works, it is not because we are not in the media that we do not work, on the contrary, we may work better in silence", added Professor Delfraissy, indicating that the next The Scientific Council's reflections would focus on the variants of the coronavirus or even on the management of the pandemic “over time”.

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