Epidemiologist and biostatistician, Dominique Costagliola is Deputy Director of the Pierre-Louis Institute of Epidemiology and Public Health (Sorbonne University, Inserm). A member of the Academy of Sciences, she has been taking a critical look at the government’s choices since the start of the Covid-19 epidemic. For The world, it looks back on the deconfinement calendar, and on the risk of an uncontrolled epidemic resumption.
Is the deconfinement announced by the President of the Republic taking place at the right time?
It seems premature to me. The probability that it will pass, that is to say to avoid a new total saturation of the hospital, is low. Currently, the number of cases is declining, but we have barely passed the peak. We release without really having reduced the pressure in the hospital. In mid-December 2020, during the previous deconfinement, the number of hospitalizations and people in intensive care had fallen more when we reopened. There, we release much earlier.
In the conclusion of his last weekly report, Public Health France, which does not yet have total freedom of expression, believes that, without a high level of support for individual prevention measures and rapid progress in vaccination, “An overflow of hospital capacities” is to be feared in the event of relaxation of collective measures.
Are you worried about a fourth wave?
Yes, all the more so since the announcement of this calendar risks encouraging less compliance with measures, including teleworking.
You will not find a single country in the world which has adopted as the deconfinement threshold an incidence of 400 cases per 100,000 inhabitants. All the other countries have much lower thresholds, 40 in Japan, 100 in many countries. In France too, we even had a threshold of 50 that we forgot without any explanation on this subject.
This threshold of 400 was chosen because it was plausible that all regions would reach it by May 19. But the probability that it will pass is very small.
Isn’t vaccination supposed to block a new wave?
At present, it can be estimated that around 10% of the population is fully vaccinated, 24% having received at least one dose. And around 23% of those over 20 have been infected according to estimates from the Institut Pasteur. This is probably too low to guarantee a decrease in the circulation of the virus.
With the British variant, more transmissible, 75% to 80% of the population should be immunized to avoid an epidemic resumption in a context where all barrier measures would be abandoned.
You have 73.28% of this article to read. The rest is for subscribers only.
–
