RECONFINATION. The Covid-19 epidemic is progressing in France and the government has announced several restrictive measures to start the year 2022. The establishment of a new containment is not yet in the plans of the executive, but new measures could be taken on the occasion of the Sanitary Defense Council on January 5.
[Mis à jour le 01 janvier 2022, à 12h40] Will we escape the confinement for this new year 2022? Nothing is less sure. When the health situation becomes critical, the use of confinement is feared by a majority of French people. But for the moment, this measure does not yet appear in the government’s plans. During a speech this Monday, December 27, Jean Castex did not even mention this measure, preferring measures related to barrier gestures and vaccination such as reducing the time before access to the booster dose or wearing a mask and consumption in places open to the public. But the situation is far from fixed. The Prime Minister has cast doubt on a further tightening of restrictions in the coming weeks, by scheduling a new Defense Council on January 5.
New containment will only be used as a last resort. The health situation will dictate the new measures of the government while Olivier Véran for his part indicated, during the same speech, that the daily number of cases of coronavirus could reach 250,000 cases by then. A disaster scenario for French hospitals with a wave of new cases of care in healthcare establishments in the coming weeks. To maintain the pressure on the population, the executive has been reminding us for several weeks that “all options are on the table”. “Should we go further and put in place traffic restrictions in this particular period? These are questions that we ask ourselves every week. Everything is on the table,” said the Minister of Health on BFMTV, Wednesday December 22.
Before resorting to a possible re-containment, the government is betting on restrictive measures: closing nightclubs, banning alcohol consumption and public gatherings on December 31, cancellation of all public events on the evening of New Year’s Eve and now wearing the extended mask, gauges in gatherings and restrictions in bars and restaurants (discover the announcements of Jean Castex this Monday, December 27). Despite the government’s action, the results are struggling to have an impact on the wave of contamination that continues to sweep through hospitals and on the Covid figures.
Is a new confinement in France still possible?
If the government must impose a new confinement in France, in 2022, it will do so on a scientific basis, with the certainty that no alternative will be sufficient to protect the French. The executive therefore relies on these objective criteria, starting with the indicators making it possible to monitor the evolution of the coronavirus epidemic in the hospital. Emmanuel Macron and Jean Castex have made it known, on several occasions, that the restrictions on freedom should above all be taken in light of the operating capacities of our healthcare system. And caregivers are already very busy and in a state of significant fatigue.
Keeping hospitals safe will depend largely on the evolution of the number of contaminations, even if vaccination is supposed to prevent as many serious forms as possible. And on these two grounds, the Omicron variant seems to be a game-changer. The latest studies have confirmed the extremely contagious nature of this strain of the coronavirus, it is transmitted in a much more significant way than the previous variants (three times more according to Olivier Véran in the press conference of December 27). And alas, the Omicron variant partly escapes the protection conferred by the vaccine according to a recent study : it would only be 30% for an individual having benefited from a two-dose vaccination and of the order of 70% for a triple vaccinated. It is therefore likely that the number of hospitalizations and serious cases will reach an alarming level requiring new braking measures.
It must be borne in mind, despite everything, that confinement would be the culmination of a disaster scenario. Before any confinement, considered as a last resort, the government, as it has done in the past, will very likely opt for less drastic restrictive measures, such as a curfew or targeted closures of businesses and activities. deemed not to be “essential”. Levers that he has not yet activated. It is likely that the government will proceed step by step with a principle of reality and fairness in mind: if it is a question of breaking the epidemic dynamic, it is necessary to make sure to reduce social interactions and prevent people from meeting. in large numbers in closed places where wearing a mask is inherently difficult, such as restaurants.
If there is confinement, it will therefore be decided in January, depending on the state of the hospitals and in particular the filling of resuscitations. The Scientific Council has already alerted public opinion to this effect in a notice, published on December 16, with a sketch of the calendar. “The hospital which will experience very difficult times from Christmas onwards and during the month of January 2022. […] The 6th wave due to the Omicron variant will settle quickly and continue without real respite the 5th wave linked to the Delta variant. This situation could put great strain on the healthcare system from mid-January for a period of several weeks, “wrote the wise men, adding that it was necessary to be more coercive.
“In view of the acceleration of the epidemic, and the risks associated with end-of-year festive activities, significant restrictive measures must be able to be taken by the authorities on the occasion of New Year’s Eve (including where applicable under the form of limitation of collective activities or curfews), with the possibility of a territorial variation “, we can read. The limitations announced by Jean Castex and Olivier Véran on December 27 will not go that far. But by announcing a new Defense Council to review the situation on January 5, did the Prime Minister not himself set the next step in this graduated response?
For his part, the President of the Scientific Council, Jean-François Delfraissy estimated from the beginning of December that confinement remained in “the toolbox” to stop the 5th and 6th wave at the beginning of the year. At RMC’s microphone, he clarified his thoughts: “It remains the terminal tool, a little barbaric that we were forced to use at the beginning.” And to add: “Everything is done at the level of all the authorities and on the part of the scientists as well, to avoid confinement”.
Can we confine the unvaccinated in France?
According to the figures, new infections and hospitalizations mainly affect people over 60 and unvaccinated people. This age group represents more than 75% of people hospitalized after contracting Covid-19 and more than half of patients treated in critical care. This is what prompted Emmanuel Macron to make the third dose of vaccine mandatory on pain of losing the health pass, within six months and five weeks after obtaining it. With the vaccination pass which will come into force (subject to its adoption by Parliament) from the beginning of the year, the message has passed: the unvaccinated will bear “all the weight” of the restrictions from 2022.
But the establishment in France of confinement only to the unvaccinated would encounter various legal obstacles. First, the country is no longer under the state of health emergency, the first condition for setting up containment or a curfew. Thus, it would first be necessary for Emmanuel Macron to decree a return to a state of health emergency and for Parliament to validate it. Moreover, even if this statute would be re-established, it does not grant all the rights. Specialist in constitutional law, Jean-Philippe Derosier had specified to BFM TV in November: “I do not think that we can take differentiated measures according to the vaccination status, because the only differentiation that allows the state of emergency health is territorial. ” It is for this reason that confinement of the elderly has never been established.
Even if François Saint-Bonnet, professor at the University Panthéon-Assas and specialist in the law of fundamental freedoms, estimated in Le Figaro that “if precise and objective epidemiological data are provided, I do not see what could stand in the way “and that” as soon as medical recommendations will have perfectly identified that the unvaccinated pose more risk at the collective level than the others, nothing will prevent the conformity with the Constitution “, the confinement of the unvaccinated persons in France should not therefore not be set up. All the more so a few months before the presidential election, in a context of major tensions that the country is already experiencing.