“It shudders, but it logically shudders.” This is how Dr. Alain Ducardonnet, BFMTV health consultant, summarizes the epidemic recovery observed in France for a few days. This Thursday, 33,263 new cases of Covid were registered compared to 19,866 a week earlier, a jump of more than 67%.
“The circulation of SARS-CoV-2 has started to increase again after several weeks of improvement in the epidemic situation”, notes Public Health France in its weekly update.
What to see a possible eighth wave of the looming Covid-19 epidemic? For now, it is difficult to predict. “The most likely scenario is that of an epidemic peak at the beginning of the school year,” estimated Brigitte Autran, recently appointed president of the Health Risk Monitoring and Anticipation Committee, successor to the Scientific Council, in mid-August.
The back to school effect
Today the pollution figures seem to go in that direction. However, specialists want to be quite confident.
“For the moment, don’t worry. Because there are no new variants”, recalls Alain Ducardonnet on BFMTV, almost all contaminations in France are linked to the Omicron BA.5 variant. However, he believes that “it will go up, for sure, there is winter, promiscuity, work, schools, it will go up”.
In fact, several factors seem to explain this uptick. Immune protection that declines over time, first. But above all, the context of returning to school and work, without specific health protocols. Back to face-to-face for almost everyone, more mandatory use of the mask… so many elements that greatly favor the transmission of the virus.
The increase in pollution is “mainly driven by those under 20 years of age”, starting with children from 0 to 9 years old (+ 111% the week of September 5 to 11), notes Public Health France. A situation that we know well: around the same time last year, the Delta variant had caused a new epidemic wave in favor of the start of the school year.
The hope of bivalent vaccines
Faced with the possibility of a new wave, the solution continues and always seems to be vaccination. Although the 4th dose campaign is open to the elderly or those at risk, only about 30% of those over 60 have received this second booster dose. After a crazy July, pharmacists are noticing that appointments are slowing down.
“Currently we vaccinate about five or seven people a day, while before the summer and in July we did it about fifteen,” Mikaël Bouaziz, a pharmacist, testifies to BFMTV. “These are mostly fourth doses, from the elderly.”
Until now, vaccines against Covid-19 have been based on the original strain discovered in Wuhan, which may change soon. In early September, the European Medicines Agency approved several new formulations, “bivalent” vaccines targeting subvariants of Omicron, in addition to the original strain.
In a few weeks, these bivalent vaccines should be available in France. This is already the case in the United States, where the vaccination campaign will make it possible to see more clearly the real efficacy of this new formula.
On Wednesday, the World Health Organization (WHO) sent a message of hope, judging the end of the pandemic “within reach” but inviting us not to give up our efforts to achieve it.
Source: BFM TV
