Contagion on the high seas. The mystery still hangs, this Saturday, on the origin of the 50 cases of Covid-19 revealed Friday by the Ministry of the Armed Forces within Charles de Gaulle. The famous aircraft carrier and its crew, isolated from the outside world since their departure from Brest (Finistère), on March 15, are expected in Toulon Sunday afternoon.
A team of experts has been dispatched on board to understand how suspected cases could arise after three weeks of autarky, when science generally suggests a 14-day contamination threshold.
Several avenues can already be mentioned. At Brest, the crew members were able to disembark from March 13 to 15. The containment is not triggered: it is announced by Emmanuel Macron … the next day.
Boom in symptomatic cases
Although their families were not allowed to board the boat themselves, it is possible that one or more seafarers may have contracted the virus at that time, without developing symptoms.
In turn, the first infected would not have fallen ill, until arriving at the quarantine of suspected cases placed under observation at the beginning of the week. The originality of this scenario would undoubtedly lie in the silent progression of the virus, followed by a boom in symptomatic cases.
Another hypothesis would be that the “zero patient” among the sailors was contagious – and possibly developed symptoms himself – from a time much greater than the incubation period generally considered, from 6 to 14 days. Rare but plausible: in February, the Chinese authorities reported a septuagenarian from Hubei province who would have developed symptoms after … 27 days.
A case observed in the escort mission
The other possibilities necessarily imply a first contamination during navigation, when the aircraft carrier was to join the Mediterranean within the framework of the Foch mission of international cooperation against Daesh.
LCI thus recalls that a case of coronavirus was noted at the end of March on board the Belgian frigate Léopold 1, precisely on an escort mission with the French vessel. Contacted by Le Parisien, the General Staff had “no knowledge” of contact between the crews of the two ships.
