Covid-19 crisis: Agnès Buzyn says she “warned” but “nobody didn’t care”

After two years of pandemic and thousands of deaths, it is time to be accountable. The former Minister of Health Agnès Buzyn has been indicted since September 2021 by the Court of Justice of the Republic (CJR) for “endangering the health of others“, in view of her management of the first weeks of the epidemic. Indeed, she subsequently left her post in February 2020 to engage in the campaign for mayor of Paris as head of the list La République en March, following the withdrawal of Benjamin Griveaux.

“Not only had I seen, but warned”

Agnès Buzyn therefore wants to twist the received idea according to which she would have been “an idiot who hasn’t seen anything, when it’s the other way around“. The one who now officiates at the Court of Auditors therefore affirms that she alerted the President of the Republic and the Prime Minister at the time, Edouard Philippe, without success, in January 2020, after having ordered the sending of a health alert message to health facilities.

“I was, by far in Europe, the most alert minister. But everyone didn’t care. People explained to me that this virus was a “flu” and that I was losing my nerves “, she mentioned to our colleagues from Le Monde, who indicated that they had been able to consult a newspaper written by the former minister during the pandemic. A “retrospective document of the crisis” of more than 600 pages, now between the hands of the CJR as an exhibit.

Text messages left unanswered

Text messages were also reported by the daily, exchanges from the minister to Emmanuel Macron and Edouard Philippe, on January 11, 2020, about the epidemic that appeared in China, which then only appeared “not yet in the media” but who “can ride“, she writes.

Agnès Buzyn reportedly wrote again on January 25: “I am at your disposal to take stock of the situation whenever you wish”. Without an answer two days later, she warns Emmanuel Macron that even a mortality rate of 1% would kill 100,000 if the virus were contracted by a million people. The Head of State finally answers her, thanking her for her “clarity”.

The feeling of “not being heard”

Agnès Buzyn explains that subsequently, Emmanuel Macron would have granted him only one interview by telephone, to discuss the Chinese virus, on February 8, 2020. Edouard Philippe seems more available. “Every time I asked Edouard for a meeting of ministers, I got it. That didn’t mean he believed in my scripts, in my anxieties, but we worked hand in hand and he trusted me, he didn’t neglect anything. The President let the government do it. At the time, they are like the rest of the French population and experts, no one can understand the seriousness of what is coming” summarizes the hematologist. Recall that the former Prime Minister has been placed for a few days under the status of “assisted witness” in this case by the CJR.

“Cheers, I was in my place”

Agnès Buzyn would then have mentioned the consequences of the arrival of the coronavirus in France, until possible confinement. A few days later, she will be appointed to replace Benjamin Griveaux in the race for mayor of Paris: “I tried to resist, but the pressure was too strong (…) I should never have left. Cheers, I was in my place. There, I was being pushed in the wrong place at the wrong time. Throughout the campaign, I continued to send text messages, to alert, but I felt that I no longer weighed anything and that I was speaking in a vacuum”.

Agnès Buzyn would have continued to alert, without success

“We are wasting time on the epidemic (…) The country is not ready!”, she would still have written to the President of the Republic, on February 29. And at the time of the first round of the elections, on March 15, 2020, she lost patience with the lack of responsiveness regarding a postponement of the second round. On February 27, she already asked Edouard Philippe “to stop everything, as in Italy, as soon as possible“, in order to avoid a certain saturation of hospitals.

“Behind your decisions are people who are going to die”, she would have added. “Take a confinement decision because we are fifteen days late. And I don’t lose my nerves, I’ve been lucid for weeks and behind your decisions are people who are going to die.” would she still have insisted with Edouard Philippe. On March 16, 2020, the first confinement will be announced and the Covid-19 crisis will officially begin in France at that time, with the repercussions that we know of.