Covid-19: “Stricter measures in the near future” believes Public Health France

In the aftermath of the announcements by Jean Castex who has ruled out for the moment the hypothesis of a third confinement in France, an official from Public Health France warned during his weekly press briefing. Daniel Lévy-Bruhl, head of the respiratory infections unit of the public health agency, believes that the spread of more transmissible variants of the coronavirus makes probable the need for “stricter measures” in France “in the near future”, in due to an already “very high” number of hospitalized patients. “It is likely that the effective R”, the reproduction rate which measures the dynamics of the epidemic, “in the near future will go well above 1”, he emphasizes. A situation which would then require, according to him, the implementation of stricter measures.

This predictable increase in the reproduction rate is linked to the “further spread of variants” that have emerged in the UK, South Africa and Brazil. The proportion of cases suspected of being one of these three more contagious variants amounted, as of January 27, to 14% of the total cases detected, according to still preliminary results published Thursday. As of January 7-8, the proportion of the British variant had been measured at 3.3% of positive cases. “The dynamics highlighted” between these two surveys “unfortunately confirms the gradual spread of these variants”, observes Daniel Lévy-Bruhl. The final results, from the sequencing of the suspected cases, should be available next week, according to SpF.

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“The hospitals will fill up”

Last week, the reproduction rate of Sars-Cov-2 slowed down a bit compared to the previous week, but remained slightly above 1, a threshold which marks an acceleration of the epidemic. “As long as we have an R greater than 1, we cannot last long like that, if only because the level of incidence and hospital burden today is already high”, with nearly 28,000 patients hospitalized, including over 3,200 in intensive care, underlines Daniel Lévy-Bruhl. Even a reproduction rate of 1, it “will not be enough to get us out of the woods”, judges the epidemiologist. Indeed, this would mean “a constant number of new hospitalizations”, but due to the length of the patients’ stay, “the number of new hospitalizations is greater than the number of discharges” and therefore “the hospitals will fill up”.

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With 143,325 new cases detected last week, the circulation of the coronavirus has stabilized “at a very high level”, notes Public Health France in its weekly bulletin. The positivity rate for screening tests fell from 7.1% to 6.7%, new hospitalizations remained stable at around 11,100, and intensive care admissions increased 6% to 1,800. Since the start of the epidemic, more than 77,000 deaths are to be deplored in France.

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