315,000 new cases confirmed on February 2, 416,000 the day before. Up to over half a million, Tuesday, January 25. With the Omicron variant, the peak of contaminations broke records. Even if the epidemic dynamics are decreasing, these figures show an active circulation of Omicron, more contagious but visibly less virulent than its predecessor, Delta. In the fight against the Covid-19 epidemic, there was “a before and after Omicron”, also judged Jean-François Delfraissy, the president of the Scientific Council, Tuesday January 25 on Franceinfo. “In our vision, our software, we have to change. We will end up at 15.16 or 17 million infected French people. But there is no evolution, there is even a drop in the number of entries and the occupation of beds in hospitals”, he underlined, opening the door to a change of vision. While 80.1% of French people have received at least one dose of vaccine, and 78.2% have a complete vaccination schedule, is it still useful to identify the number of new positive cases every day?
“Let’s change the paradigm”
Since the intervention of Jean-François Delfraissy, several scientists and health professionals have followed suit and are calling for a change of strategy. “The face of the epidemic is changing, let’s change the paradigm: let’s stop testing, isolate and trace, let’s continue the vaccination effort, let’s treat the most fragile,” said infectiologist Karine Lacombe, head of the infectious diseases department at Saint Antoine Hospital (Paris) on Twitter. “Omicron represents more than 90% of infections now, everyone will be positive at some point, everyone is a contact case”, noted Carole Poupon, president of the National Union of Hospital Biologists, on BFMTV on Thursday January 27.
In addition to the transmissibility of the Omicron variant, the surge in cases has been amplified by the recourse of many French people to screening. “With the 5th wave at the beginning of November, the volume of tests increased sharply until reaching a peak of more than two million tests validated on January 10, 2022. It has begun to decline for two weeks, in particular among those under 66. “, details the General Directorate of Health (DGS), in a note published on Thursday. Massive use of PCR or antigen tests – which if positive give rise to contact cases, which in turn test themselves – logically increases the number of cases. As well as the use of self-tests, the sale of which in supermarkets has been extended until February 15, has increased the contamination identified.
“No time to remove tools”
But on a daily basis, the indicator of new cases remains “very important information. It is not by making it disappear that we make the epidemic disappear”, underlines Pascal Crépey, epidemiologist and teacher-researcher at the School. graduate studies in public health in Rennes. He still images: “It is not because you stop taking your temperature that the fever is down. This indicator is the thermometer of the epidemic, it must not be broken. It must be seen as a way of better fight against the epidemic rather than the result of a failure.” And he would not be surprised to see, in the future, this information considered in the same way as a weather report. “It can be reassuring if there is a drop in the number of cases, he says. Or call for vigilance if it is the opposite. Everyone can be an actor.”
The epidemiologist believes that it is “not the time to remove tools that help testify to the circulation of the virus. We are not out of the woods, just on the right track. When there will be less circulation , there will be fewer tests. The system will naturally shrink”. Or build muscle again if another variant appears. “Let’s stay agile and flexible,” he concludes.