Faced with the seventh wave of the Covid-19 epidemic, the government is banking on vaccination and “citizen responsibility”, and excludes at this stage the return of health measures such as the compulsory mask in transport.
France plunged back into a new wave at the start of the summer, carried by new subvariants of the Omicron family, BA.4 and especially BA.5. Consequence: Professor Alain Fischer, President of the Vaccine Strategy Orientation Council, beats the vaccination booster for the over 60s and the fragile.
” Despite the cumulative effect of injections and infections, the level of protection is no longer optimal. Moreover, the vaccines remain safe: there are no more side effects during a fourth dose. It’s simple, the 8.5 million eligible French people who have not yet received it must go to their pharmacy or their general practitioner. “, declared in the Sunday Journal the “Mister vaccines” of the government. “ The data show that with a fourth dose the level of neutralizing antibodies rises to the same level as after the third. Protection against severe forms is therefore restored to more than 90% for a certain number of months. Frankly, a shot twice a year, it’s not so terrible! “, he played down.
” Vaccination alone will not be enough »
But for Mahmoud Zureik, professor of epidemiology and public health at the University of Versailles-Saint-Quentin, the vaccine alone is not enough to stem the epidemic. ” Vaccination alone will not be enoughhe warns. It is necessary to associate the wearing of a mask in transport, in closed, poorly ventilated places to participate in the reduction of the risk of contamination. And moreover, a policy of ventilation, aeration is necessary to complete the devices to be able to control the current wave. »
Several voices in the medical community, including that of Alain Fischer, on a personal basis, or of the federation of public hospitals, plead for a return to the compulsory mask in transport. But in the government, we are calling on “ civic responsibility “. For now, “ the idea is not to return to more restrictive measures “, indicated Brigitte Bourguignon, who does not exclude other measures if necessary.
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