Guest of France Bleu Paris, epidemiologist and public health specialist, Martin Blachier looks back on what we know about these new variants which are closely scrutinized by the authorities because they are more contagious. So far, only 22 cases of the British variant have been detected in France.“If this variant takes up more space in France, we would have an epidemic that would start again because of this variant, it is fear but we do not know at what rate it will happen”.
- Is the British variant more contagious to young people under 20?
“The data are very preliminary, and most English people who have looked at these studies say rather no”, answers Martin Blachier. This variant caused contaminations to flare up in England, which had to close its schools and completely reconfigure the country until mid-February.
- Can the South African variant make vaccines less effective?
“Rumors” according to Martin Blachier. “Lots of guesswork, no data yet”. To date, a case has been confirmed in France in the Haut-Rhin.
- Is it necessary to reconfine to delay the expansion of variants?
“The epidemic will not be handled any differently because of this variant. This variant poses a threat of loss of control to us. So we potentially expect to lose control and have to re-define. But that’s not depending on the prevalence of the variant that we have not been able to determine whether to go into confinement or not. “ To be able to identify this variant, it is necessary to carry out a sequencing of the genome of the virus for each PCR test, which is not currently done.
“Containment is such a difficult decision to make that you can only take it if you lose control of the epidemic.” It remains to be seen what are the critical thresholds that will lead us to speak of loss of control.
–
