Laura Laplaud 09:42 am, December 27, 2021

While the number of Covid-19 contaminations has continued to increase in recent days, a new health defense council is being held on Monday. Several avenues are on the table to curb the epidemic and thus avoid a partial paralysis of the country. For epidemiologist Pascal Crépey invited from Europe Matin, it will certainly "make compromises".

The explosion of the Omicron variant poses a threat: that of a partial paralysis of the country with the placement in isolation of hundreds of thousands of infected French people.

To overcome these difficulties, should the isolation time be reduced in the event of contamination?

For Pascal Crépey, epidemiologist and teacher-researcher at the School of Advanced Studies in Public Health, this remains "something which is difficult to assess".

"The challenge is to adapt the measures so that they are bearable and that we can continue to live", underlines the epidemiologist. 

What will the government decide?

As a new health defense council is held on Monday, the government may well consider taking new measures to stem the spread of the virus.

"When we are faced with an epidemic and a wave like the one we are in today, if we do not want to stop the life of the country and also stop the economy, we will have to make compromises", advance- it on Europe 1. Among the compromises that the government could consider: reducing isolation to five days, postponing the start of the school year, imposing a curfew on December 31st.

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But this last strategy does not seem interesting for Pascal Crépey. "A one-off measurement just over a day or an evening is not of much interest," he explains. "It is not because you are going to lock people up in their homes one evening that you are going to have a different dynamic, the infections which will not take place that day, will take place the next day".

Should we then postpone the start of the school year by a week, as claimed by some fifty doctors in a column published by our colleagues in the

Journal du dimanche

?

"To close schools a little longer or to postpone the school holidays, to add a week of vacation, that can be part of the measures which will help us to control this epidemic", he explains.

"But there are other measures on which we should rely, teleworking for example."

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“The more people you have teleworking, the fewer people you have on public transport, in offices, etc. And so, you also protect all the people who cannot telework. 'moment, we really do not use it enough ", deplores Pascal Crépey.

Teleworking, which has however been set as a priority by Elisabeth Borne, the Minister of Labor, who was the guest of Europe 1 last week.