The CHU Pellegrin, in Bordeaux – UGO AMEZ / SIPA
- While the medical community invests little in TikTok, the Bordeaux University Hospital comes to speak to answer questions “from a young audience who does not go to the TV channels”.
- “Young people are very resilient, but how far and until when? », Worries Professor Charles Cazanave.
- The infectious disease specialist also warns that vaccination will not be synonymous with lifting the barrier gestures.
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A national live on the Covid-19 crisis organized on the TikTok social network. This is the idea that the Bordeaux University Hospital and the media Curieux! Had had, whose goal “is to disentangle the true from the false”. The session (meeting this Tuesday at 6 p.m.) will be organized from Cap Sciences in Bordeaux, and it is Professor Charles Cazanave, infectious disease specialist in the infectious and tropical diseases department of Bordeaux University Hospital, who will answer questions from tiktokers. In the meantime, he answered questions from 20 Minutes.
Why speak on TikTok?
I had already made videos for TikTok with the Curieux! Site, but the idea here is to do a live one to keep the spontaneous side of this medium, aimed at a young audience who does not go to the TV channels, does not look at the information on the Internet and even less in the press, with the risk sometimes of being “misinformed”. This social network is very little invested by the medical community.
Are there different questions from this audience regarding the Covid-19 crisis?
Not necessarily, I think the questions will turn a lot around the issue of curfew, confinement, wearing a mask, and certainly on vaccination. During my first interventions there were many questions about the risk of having a more serious form, about the after-effects …
The question of the curfew in Bordeaux is on everyone’s lips, with the issue of gatherings on the quays, what do you think?
Closing the platforms would be a further deprivation of space and time dedicated to this age, which needs to live out its youth. But as an infectious disease doctor, I tell myself that these gatherings are not good, so it’s always a delicate question to tackle. Where should the cursor be placed so that these young people are not even more deprived, a year after the start of a crisis which has seen their life pattern completely upset? Young people are very resilient despite everything, but how far and until when? All the more so since there is no real prospect of lifting the constraints, or even one would rather move towards an intensification of these constraints.
The danger underlined today is the variants, which are also on the rise in New Aquitaine, do you confirm?
Yes. Globally, there are almost more variants currently circulating than first wave viruses, and within these variants it is the English variant which has taken precedence in New Aquitaine. It is a variant which is not that far removed from the original virus, and whose transmissibility would be 30 to 50% higher. But these viruses remain accessible to the current vaccine strategy, regardless of the vaccines which will in any case evolve to adapt.
Treatment options are mentioned, what can we say?
On monoclonal antibodies I prefer not to communicate for the moment, and on the track of
interferon, it is a drug that has been used for a long time, which stimulates the immune system, and which would show positive signals for ambulatory forms of Covid-19, and prevent them from passing into hospital form, it is that is, moderate to severe. This is an avenue on which we are working at the Bordeaux University Hospital in the Coverage trial in the elderly. But it is true that we do not have many therapeutic weapons at the moment, which is why we must strengthen vaccination. And we must not let go of barrier gestures, even when we are vaccinated.
Even when you are vaccinated, you will not be able to take off your mask right away?
No, since we can clearly see that there are different viruses circulating, and on which we do not know how our acquired immunity will respond. So we will have to remain cautious. Standard barrier gestures – washing hands, hydroalcoholic gel – must henceforth become basic hygiene. It has shown its effectiveness, with very few flu and gastroenteritis this winter. And the mask will stay a long time, even if it’s difficult to admit because there is a fed up.
What is the situation at Bordeaux University Hospital?
The situation is tense, but we are maintaining our operating programs. We have been in a state of vigilance for several months, with some delays in non-urgent interventions.
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