To analyse
Covid-19: Europe lifts health restrictions despite an epidemic rebound
Screening center in Paris, January 2022. AFP - LUDOVIC MARIN
Text by: Jeanne Richard Follow
5 mins
In France, the number of people infected with Covid-19 has stopped decreasing in recent days and more than 50,000 cases are diagnosed daily.
A situation similar to that of other Western European countries (Germany, Netherlands, United Kingdom or Switzerland for example) where a rebound in the epidemic has even been observed.
However, the French government, like some of its European neighbors, has decided to lift health measures.
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Monday March 14, the
vaccination pass
will no longer be compulsory in France.
No more wearing a mask indoors, in restaurants, cinemas, nightclubs.
More social distancing.
No more constraints at school or in the workplace.
The health measures remain in force only in transport, as well as in hospitals and retirement homes.
So it's almost a return to normal.
To life before.
And yet, the number of daily cases remains higher than during the peak of the Delta wave last fall.
The epidemic has even shown signs of recovery for a few days, in particular in regions where students have returned to school after the winter holidays, such as Normandy or Brittany.
BA2 becomes majority
For Antoine Flahaut, epidemiologist and director of the Institute of Global Health at the University of Geneva, this rebound is due to the
BA2 sub-variant
of
Omicron
which, according to studies, is 30% more transmissible than its cousin, the BA1 sub-variant, responsible for the latest wave in Western Europe.
“
In most Western European countries today, the BA2 is becoming the majority.
It is not associated with a very large increase in the number of cases.
For example in Denmark, which saw my dominance of the BA2 in the country as early as January, did not experience a new wave.
The Danes have just experienced an extension of their current wave.
»
However, notes the epidemiologist, even though they both belong to the Omicron family of viruses, "
BA2 and BA1 are quite distant genetically
", and therefore it is not yet known whether people who have already been infected with Omicron BA1 will not be re-infected with BA2.
Risk for fragile people
This is why he considers that it is too early to lift the sanitary measures, in particular the wearing of the mask indoors, "
which protects vulnerable people
" who have received their third dose of vaccine for some for six months. , and who therefore risk losing their immune protection.
The epidemiologist Dominique Costagliaola, director of research emeritus at INSERM shares this opinion.
“
Besides the fact that it condemns fragile people to work and to do their work shopping at their own risk and peril, it is something that will re-promote the circulation of the virus.
However, we are always at the mercy of seeing a new variant appear quickly if the traffic is intense.
Lifting the wearing of the mask is therefore, according to her, “
a bad idea
”.
To put in place such a measure, “
we would have to wait to have an incidence of less than 50 cases per 100,000 people.
".
Today in France, the health services list nearly 320 cases per 100,000 people, more than 6 times what the epidemiologist advises.
living with the virus
However, other countries have also been lifting health restrictions in Europe for several weeks: Austria, Belgium, the United Kingdom... even though an epidemic rebound has been observed there.
But despite a very high number of contaminations in these countries, the hospital is not overwhelmed.
And that's what matters most according to Frédéric Adnet, head of the emergency department at the Avicenne hospital in Bobigny and the Samu in Seine-Saint-Denis.
“
We now have very, very few patients who come to the emergency room or who call the Samu because of the Covid
”, he testifies.
In French hospitals, there are currently 2,000 people in intensive care and the figure continues to decrease.
“
We have somewhat contradictory signs between a certain relaxation at the hospital level and a certain concern at the level of the incidence rate which is going up
”, he notes.
So how can this situation be explained?
Professor Adnet believes this is “
most likely because the population now is very immune.
Whether through the vaccine or through old infections, which does not prevent the disease, but which prevents serious forms that require hospitalization.
»
And studies show that the BA2 subvariant remains susceptible to vaccines.
It also highlights the arrival of effective antiviral drugs.
“
All these elements lead me to think that yes, it will go up, but no, we are not going to have hospital constraints and therefore, in my opinion, this allows the barrier, health pass or confinement measures to be lifted.
»
Finally, at the scientific level, opinions diverge between those who think that sanitary measures must still be maintained for a certain time, and those who believe that we can now live with SARS Cov 2 as we live with the flu.
But accepting to let the virus circulate also means accepting a still very high number of deaths.
Every day in France, 160 people die from Covid-19.
The pandemic is not over.
► To read also: Covid-19: lessons and challenges of an extraordinary epidemic
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