Covid-19 has clearly not disappeared. The virus is still being transmitted in France, and, again, more and more. A new epidemic wave has hit French territory since mid-May. In its latest bulletin published this Tuesday, Public Health France announces a “resumption of viral circulation” and estimates that its impact on the healthcare system “should be monitored in the coming weeks”. An upward trend for eight weeks already.
In the space of ten days, visits to the emergency room for “suspected Covid” have jumped (+52% over one week). This increase is even more marked among those under 15 (+ 123%). Same trend at SOS Médecins (+51%, with 1,507 acts from June 3 to 10). Another indicator which is the subject of particularly increased monitoring: wastewater. The presence of Sars-CoV-2, monitored in 12 stations, also shows a clear progression in viral circulation over the past month.
New variants
More than four years after the start of the pandemic, several signals of increasing circulation are converging, as in other European countries. “After a long period of low activity”, European countries have experienced an epidemic rebound in recent weeks, the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) recently reported. “The rise was predictable,” Mircea Sofonea, epidemiologist at the University of Montpellier and Nîmes University Hospital, told AFP.
The cause: “an immune decline” of the population but also the appearance of new sub-variants of the virus, all members of the Omicron JN.1 lineage, according to this expert. “There is no evidence to our knowledge that this new wave will cause a greater health impact than the previous two,” said Mircea Sofonea. Nothing suggests increased severity of current variants, including a new derivative of Omicron, called KP.2 and nicknamed “FLiRT”, detected in Europe and the United States. “Each time a new wave forms, it is thanks to a new variant which at least partially escapes pre-existing immunity”, explains to 20 minutes Antoine Flahault, epidemiologist and professor at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Geneva.
Risk of transmission during the tests?
The majority of events at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games will take place outdoors, but the risk of contamination is not low. Young people were the first to illustrate the return of Covid, in the wake of the concerts of American singer Taylor Swift in Paris in May. On social media, fans showed off their positive tests or encouraged other “Swifties” to get tested.
If, since May 2023, the World Health Organization no longer considers the pandemic a global health emergency, it regularly reminds that SARS-CoV-2 “continues to circulate and evolve”. The risk remains of a more dangerous variant. Over time and waves, the impact of Covid on hospitalizations and deaths has, however, greatly diminished, thanks to the high level of immunity acquired through vaccination or infections. But it is not zero, and long Covids are added to it.
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