Wearing a mask is still not compulsory but highly recommended within a week of Christmas. To encourage the French to protect themselves, the Covars calls for making the mask free where wearing it should be the norm.
[Mis à jour le 20 décembre 2022 à 8h30] As Christmas is fast approaching, the government still refuses to make it compulsory to wear a mask in transport or public places. A position from which he does not budge while France is still under the influence of a triple epidemic Covid-19, bronchiolitis and flu. What does the Health Risk Monitoring and Anticipation Committee (Covars) think? Nor does the scientific body decide in its second opinion made public on Monday, December 19 and is content to list the arguments for and against the wearing of the compulsory mask. The scales tip in favor of an obligation, but it is up to the executive – immobile on the subject – that this responsibility falls, according to the scientists. Still, the Covars calls for “strengthening accessibility / making it available free of charge in all places where they are necessary” to encourage the French to protect themselves in closed and crowded places.
If the opinion of Covars only presents recommendations, many of them seem urgent. In particular at a time when “the lasting drop in temperature, the recent changes in protective measures in China, the low rate of vaccination protection for the most fragile and the holiday season are factors of potential aggravation of the epidemic risk” of Covid-19 even if the peak of the 9th wave seems to have been reached. Added to that “an early start to the flu epidemic […] which has a high epidemic and pathogenic potential, with a risk of significant impact in fragile populations who are insufficiently vaccinated”. Not sure, however, that these elements are enough to change the opinion of the Minister of Health. Who indicated on 18 December in the columns of JDD exclude “at this stage” a forced return of the mask.
However, the mandatory mask policy does not seem to put off the French. 76% of them would be in favor of wearing a mask compulsory in public transport according to a recent survey Odexa. However, as this December 11 poll reveals, the French “do not yet conform their actions to their state of mind” because only 46% of them systematically wear a mask in public transport. However, according to a study by the Pasteur Institute, the risk of contamination is increased by 20% in the metro, 30% in the train and even 70% in the plane. Risks against which the mask proves to be very effective, as recalled by infectious disease specialist Anne-Claude Crémieux on December 6 in Le Figaro : If the obligation to wear a mask in closed places was taken now, there could be an effect on hospitalizations within about a week.
The obligations left to the discretion of the prefects?
But you should know that a return of the mandatory mask in the coming weeks would not be easy to establish quickly for the executive even if he wanted it. The law of July 30 put an end to the state of health emergency in France. This temporary device allowed the executive to put in place strict health measures such as a limitation of freedom of movement or the compulsory wearing of a mask in certain locations. In a press release dated August 4, 2022, it was specified that this type of health restriction could no longer be adopted without the passing of a new law. Not having an absolute majority, the vote for such measures – often contested by the opposition, seems delicate.
One of the solutions considered would be the restoration of the mandatory wearing of masks at the local level. Questioned on this subject by Ouest-France, Me Alibert, considered that “orders issued by prefects or mayors could be justified in a given territory and at certain times of the day, in particular in the event of bad epidemiological figures noted locally”.
The call for health specialists to wear the mask
For several weeks already, many health professionals and experts have been calling for a return to the mask in public transport in particular. In the columns of Parisian, virologist Anne-Claude Crémieux recently lamented a collective “amnesia”, noting that the French have “forgotten that masks are effective, this can be seen in the metro in particular, where few people wear them”. The Omicron variant remains the majority and continues to spread across the territory at high speed. On December 6, the milestone of 100,000 cases was exceeded with 105,516 contaminations confirmed by the health authority. The health agency deplored “an acceleration of the circulation of SARS-CoV-2 was clearly observed with incidence and positivity rates calculated from antigenic tests and all tests”. However, a stabilization has been felt on the contamination curves for a few days. Some doctors believe that the peak of the ninth wave has been reached; however, as with each wave, hospitalizations will continue to increase despite the stabilization of the figures and calls for caution have been launched a few days before the Christmas holidays but also in the face of epidemics of influenza and bronchiolitis.
Three respiratory epidemics
This booster shot therefore comes as France faces the increase in cases of influenza, but also of bronchiolitis. Several experts had alerted to the applicability of barrier gestures in recent weeks. Regarding the flu, the signals are red according to Public health France, with the entire hexagon now placed in the epidemic phase. As for the bronchiolitis epidemic, it started to rise again after a lull during the All Saints school holidays. L’National Health Agency which reported a “particularly marked intensity of the epidemic throughout the metropolitan territory and in Guadeloupe”.
Faced with these worrying indicators, infectious disease specialist Benjamin Davido asked about RMC Sunday November 27 the “return of a strong incentive to wear a mask indoors”. At the very beginning of November, the National Academy of Medicine had in a communicated alerted, considering the return of the necessary mask. The institution was alarmed by the contaminations which risked occurring if the mask was not restored in closed places. The Academy took the side of wearing a mask, recalling that the obligation to wear this protection, combined with strict respect for barrier gestures, had allowed “a spectacular reduction in the incidence of influenza infections, gastroenteritis and bronchiolitis” during the 2020-2021 season. The organization therefore issues several recommendations, deemed necessary:
- the vaccination booster against Covid and the flu.
- wearing an FFP2 type mask in enclosed public spaces for people at risk (elderly or with comorbidity) or healthcare personnel and their entourage.
- the wearing of a surgical-type mask in health spaces and in closed spaces open to the public, in particular public transport.
- respect barrier gestures such as the use of hydroalcoholic gel.
Currently, in addition to vaccination and isolation in the event of symptoms, Santé Publique France recommends wearing a mask in the presence of vulnerable people, in the event of crowding in closed spaces and during large gatherings.
However, public support for mask-wearing appears to be eroding over time. Thus, a study conducted in September 2022 by CoviPrev and published by Public health France early October shows that only 16% of respondents wore a mask in public (compared to 34% in May 2022). At work, 70% of French people said they no longer wear a mask (or do so less often) and 61% do not wear it on public transport, compared to 23% in May. More than half of those surveyed (52%) said they no longer wear the mask out of forgetfulness, but also because of a certain weariness.
Is the mask compulsory on the plane, train, metro and other transport?
In its opinion, the Covars recommends wearing a mask to reduce contamination and notes that “Germany has made wearing a mask compulsory in public transport and is considering extending the list of places of obligation”. In airports, the mask is no longer compulsory as well as in planes, “it nevertheless remains recommended”, indicates Paris airport on its site. The SNCF also ensures that “wearing a mask is strongly recommended in our stations and on our trains”. Transit companies in several cities still suggest wearing a mask. “Let’s keep our good habits”, asks the RATP. Lyon public transport also recommends wearing it in the metros, buses and trams. In Marseille, the RTM indicates that “wearing a mask is strongly recommended throughout the network”.
Wearing a mask remains “highly recommended” in health centers. This recommendation particularly applies to hospitals. The largest hospital group in France, Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris (AP-HP) went further by specifying that wearing a mask remained “compulsory” inside “its hospital buildings” for “staff, patients and visitors” in order to protect the most vulnerable.
The law on “monitoring and health security in the fight against Covid-19” was definitively adopted by Parliament on July 26. It includes a substantial reduction in most of the mechanisms for combating the virus: in fact, the text formally repeals, from 1er August, the part of the public health code relating to the state of health emergency as well as the system for managing the health crisis, marking the return to common law. The coercive measures of daily life provided for by these regimes – sanitary pass, obligation to wear a mask, confinement, curfew… – can no longer be restored. However, in the context of parliamentary debates prior to the adoption of this health law, the government reiterated its wish that the mask reflex “become the norm again” in “crowded places and public transport”.
If the return of the compulsory mask is not there, it is therefore still widely recommended by the government which encourages everyone to “continue to be vigilant”. The advice applies above all to “closed spaces”, when there are “a lot of people, especially in transport”, as the Prime Minister has explained on several occasions.. The text of the law also insists on the need to continue to apply barrier gestures to protect the most vulnerable. On the other hand, this new law clearly specifies that the wearing of a mask will not be the subject of a national measure of obligation. As of July 2022, the Minister of Health François Braun did not rule out “making it compulsory again in the event that a” new dangerous variant “appears, as he confided to the Parisian.
Transport and shopping centers are on the list of “enclosed places and large gatherings” where the mask is recommended for “frail people, because of their age or their pathologies” (as indicated by the government website). These recommendations are also a call for caution to avoid an epidemic outbreak during the winter.