The second wave of the covid-19 pandemic that Europe is currently facing should not be the last, with “successive waves until the end of winter” and next spring, the French Government’s Scientific Council warned.
“We have, therefore, many months ahead of us with an extremely difficult situation”, foresees the body in charge of advising the French Government.
The warning has now been released, but is dated Monday, October 26, two days before the announcement by French President Emmanuel Mácron on the imposition of a new confinement to combat the contagions of the second wave of covid-19.
“It is very difficult to predict how long the second wave will last, because it depends on the virus itself, on the climate, on the measures that will be taken to limit the circulation of the virus, on the acceptance of these measures and, consequently, on their impact”, writes the Council Scientific.
“We can put the possibility of leaving the second wave at the end of the year or at the beginning of 2021. This exit must be accompanied by a return of the virus circulation to a very controlled level (5,000 to 8,000 new contagions per day, at most)” , says the entity.
In announcing a confinement until at least December 1st, the French President, Emmanuel Macron indicated that the objective was to reach “about 5,000” cases of contagion per day, against the 40,000 to 50,000 daily infections that are currently registered.
Whatever the success of the measures implemented, it will probably “not be enough to avoid other vacancies”, warns the Scientific Council, which recommended the Government to adopt the new confinement.
“We can thus have several successive waves during the late winter and spring of 2021, depending on different elements: weather and level and operational efficiency of the test / detect / isolate strategy (the positive cases)”, he adds.
Governments in Europe will therefore face “successive waves of resurgence” from the epidemic “until the first vaccines and / or treatments arrive”, which could only happen in the second quarter of 2021, the Council said.
The management of these successive vacancies can be done in different ways.
One way is “an on / off strategy”, that is, an alternation between periods of restrictions (to limit the circulation of the virus) and periods of relaxation.
“Is this possible in the long run? Will the French accept such a strategy? is it economically viable? The questions were asked, but have not yet been answered ”, admits the Scientific Council chaired by Jean-François Delfraissy.
Another strategy is to “keep the virus at a rate below” the limit of 5,000 infections per day, with a policy of “suppressing viral circulation”, as has been done by “several Asian countries, Denmark, Finland, France and for Germany ”.
“This strategy implies strong and early measures whenever an epidemic starts again”, recommends the Council, according to which this is “the best way to guarantee the maintenance of economic activity”.
The covid-19 pandemic has already claimed almost 1.2 million deaths and more than 46 million cases of infection worldwide, according to a report by the French agency AFP.
The disease is transmitted by a new coronavirus detected in late December 2019 in Wuhan, a city in central China.
–
