For a few months, the virus had been put away in the aisle of unpleasant memories, but its circulation at its lowest point and the drop in pressure on the hospital quickly made people forget that the Covid-19 always manages to find a new way to propagate. Observed for some time by specialists, the resumption of new contaminations is now there. “Last summer, the Delta wave was less strong and less severe than the one that swept France during the fall and the beginning of winter, so we could hope that the summer would slow down the epidemic process. which started”, concedes Antoine Flahault, professor of epidemiology and director of the Institute of global health at the faculty of medicine of Geneva. However, he explains, the resumption of the epidemic in the countries of the South should have alerted us: “New Zealand, Australia or South Africa experienced between December and March, during their austral summer, strong waves, so summer doesn’t seem to be immune to Omicron waves.”
In fact, the recovery is everywhere in Europe. From North to South, all countries are experiencing more or less marked rebounds. “At the end of week 23 (which ended on June 12), transmission began to increase in several countries and throughout the European Union and the European Economic Area”, notes the EU Center for Disease Control (ECDC). For the past week, the average of new cases over seven days has gained almost 60% in Italy, more than 50% in Belgium, and almost 30% in recent days in Spain. In France, it is close to 60%.
The rise in cases has since been pushed by BA.5, a descending variant of the Omicron family and which is becoming more and more important in new contaminations by replacing the previous variant, BA.2. “BA.5 was initially identified in January in South Africa, where it caused a fairly short wave of moderate intensity last April-May. Then it entered Europe via Portugal (May-June), and is spreading in Western Europe but also now towards the east of the European subcontinent”, explains Antoine Flahault. In many countries where this variant is installed, it now represents almost a third of new contaminations.
According to Public Health France, it represented 24.2% of new cases sequenced in France, while it peaked at 13% the previous week. “The current growth advantage of the worrying variants BA.4 and BA.5 compared to the dominant variant BA.2, is probably due to their ability to escape immune protection”, underlines the ECDC, which judges that these strains “will become dominant throughout the EU”.
This recovery, while many countries had lifted health restrictions, could be explained by various factors. On the one hand the advantage in terms of transmission of this virus over its competitors, but also the decline in the immunity conferred by the vaccine, which now fades markedly in the first vaccinated as well as the elderly.
Precautionary speech and vaccination reminder
Aware of the seriousness of the resumption of the epidemic, some countries no longer hesitate to reconnect with a discourse of precaution, even health restrictions. As the number of Covid-19 infections fell in May and Germany abandoned most of its social distancing measures in the spring – the mask remaining imposed on public transport – Health Minister Karl Lauterbach officially urged citizens to return to the path of health precautions in the face of the upsurge in cases. “The wave announced for the summer has unfortunately become a reality,” he told the daily. Rheinische Post, emphasizing: “This means less slack for the next few weeks”. He also recommended that elderly or sick people take a booster dose without waiting. “This does not completely protect against infection but helps prevent severe forms of the disease,” he argued.
The return of these contaminations has led to an awareness of the need to protect the most vulnerable populations, in particular by relaunching booster vaccination campaigns. In France, while more than 8.7 million people are eligible for a booster injection, less than 2.2 million have actually received it. “It’s not going fast enough, there are not enough people coming to be vaccinated”, worried the Ministry of Health, which urged residents of nursing homes and people over 80 (31%), to “get vaccinated as soon as possible to spend the summer and autumn serenely”. In Spain, the government sees further. At the end of last week, the Minister of Health, Carolina Darias, announced that a large booster vaccination campaign, aimed at the entire population, should begin in the fall.
Epidemiologists call for the mask
Faced with this same epidemic resumption, Israel has identified for the second day in a row more than 10,000 new contaminations in the past 24 hours, and observes a test positivity rate which exceeds 40%. But here as elsewhere, the country does not currently plan to take new restrictions. In this context, Professor Salman Zarka, who coordinates the fight against the coronavirus in Israel, simply recommended wearing a mask indoors for everyone, without however believing that the time had come to make it compulsory.
The serene attitude of the public authorities to contain this wave remains the norm for the moment, but epidemiologists are more worried. “We must anticipate a rebound in all health indicators, if they do not occur, or less strongly, we will all be delighted, but we must seek to prevent all avoidable complications”, warns Antoine Flahault. This Wednesday, June 22, Alain Fischer, the former head of the Vaccine Strategy Orientation Council, spoke out “in a personal capacity” for the imposition of the mask in public transport “for fragile people, and probably for the whole population”. A speech still little heard, but which could gain ground.