When we talk about the fourth wave, we have always talked about the wave of hospitalization. So there is no fourth wave entering England, according to Dr Gérald Kierzek, emergency doctor at Hôtel-Dieu hospital (AP-HP). It’s not a wave of hospitalization, he says. For him, the reasons can be multiple. First, there is the vaccination. It has been proven and works in particular to prevent severe forms in fragile patients. It is really a message to encourage vaccination, explains the emergency doctor. There is probably also the variant, he continues. When a virus mutates, it can weaken and perhaps become more contagious, but less virulent. And then there may also be natural immunity or collective immunity. The virus has a much harder time penetrating the population when it affects younger people and not the most fragile. And if the most fragile are vaccinated, this virus does not do the same damage at all, he explains.
–
But beyond the vaccination in the hospital, in France in particular, are there other things, other gestures, other precautions to be taken, before the probable arrival of this variant? For the emergency doctor, there are two types of possible measures. First, prevent serious forms or contaminations by simple barrier gestures: ventilate, wash your hands, wear a mask indoors, and especially for the most vulnerable people are vaccinated. And once you have the virus and people are infected, you have to prepare the hospitals. I do not understand that we do not prepare it, that we do not equip hospitals, especially local hospitals, that we do not increase resuscitation services, he protests. While that would simply allow us to anticipate a potential wave of coronavirus or other epidemics. We know that, each year, there is a global shortage of hospital beds, he concludes.
– .
