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Despite the “collapse” of the Omicron wave, the government maintains the lifting of restrictions in mid-March.
The Omicron wave recedes, but the government maintains the withdrawal of health restrictions in mid-March. “It’s too early to say it’s over and to remove all measures”, underlined the Minister of Health, Olivier Véran, invited on the set of the “Grand Jury” RTL-Le Figaro-LCI.
According to the latest epidemiological bulletin from Santé Publique France, “the ebb of the SARS-CoV 2 infection epidemic has increased on national territory”. The incidence rate is 1,367 cases per 1,000 inhabitants, i.e. a 44% drop in positive cases and for all ages.
Numbers down with hospitalizations still high
“We have been seeing for several weeks a collapse of the Omicron wave, which reduces its pace by two each week”, confirmed Olivier Véran. So why so much caution? Because on the hospitalization side, the figures are also falling (-29% last week compared to the previous one), but remain high enough to continue to weigh on the hospital load with still 28,600 people admitted to establishments for Covid care, including 2,900 in critical care. “D‘by mid-March, the hospital and epidemic conditions will allow us to remove the mask inside and to remove all or part of the vaccination pass where it is still in force today”, explained Olivier Véran before adding that the nature of the canceled restrictions such as wearing a mask indoors will depend on the curves for the next two weeks.
“A new era”, according to Jean-Franççois Delfraissy
We have now been living to the rhythms of the waves and the resulting restrictions for almost two years and this is undoubtedly how we will have to get used to living, according to Jean-François Delfraissy, president of the Scientific Council. Interviewed in The Parisian on the health situation, he believes that we are living in “a new era”. A life punctuated by the virus with which we will have to learn to live. “We are going to move slowly, probably in the fall, towards an endemic situation, with controlled circulation of the virus, but with occasional epidemic peaks due to the appearance of new variants. Clearly, we will still live a long time with Sars-Cov-2, but in a different way”he believes.
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“It will be up to citizens to choose, to assess the risk”
He adds that there will certainly be periods when temporary measures will have to be taken in the event of an increase in contamination, but hopes that in the long term, “Citizens manage their own lives according to the level of the epidemic. You can’t ask the same thing of an 18-year-old or someone who is old. It will be up to the citizens to choose, to assess the risk”.