The Minister of Health Olivier Véran announced it this week: the next lifting of health restrictions will probably concern the obligation to wear a mask in closed places. Finally: useful or not the mask? Dr Gérald Kierzek, emergency physician and medical director of Doctissimo, pleads for feedback from this measure.
After talking about it with our colleagues from France Info on Wednesday February 16, the day of the reopening of nightclubs in particular, Olivier Véran provided some details on the end of the obligation to wear a mask indoors.
“Between 1000 and 2000 patients in intensive care”
It was while traveling to the Larchet hospital in Nice that the Minister of Health again mentioned the lifting of the measures. For the Minister of Health, the end of wearing a mask indoors “implies that the activity has resumed a routine rhythm, and that I estimated it between 1,000 and 2,000 Covid patients in intensive care, it would be useless and excessive for me to give you a figure to the nearest unit “.
A drop in cases of contamination is therefore necessary and for the Minister of Health, “if the decline continues, we will be at 1,500 patients – perhaps even less – in intensive care because of Covid, we will have lowered the health burden for hospitals and therefore it will no longer be necessary to maintain measures which are experienced as constrained by the French”.
The end of the obligation to wear a mask indoors for the end of March?
According to the current models of the epidemic, the end of the obligation to wear a mask indoors could occur around the end of next March. It would then concern companies, public transport or schools, but also in all cultural places or restaurants. Olivier Véran therefore wants to be confident for the weeks to come. “The circulation dynamic of the virus is weakening very strongly and if we continue on this dynamic, we will be able to completely get out of the wave in a few weeks.“, he assured. “Which means that the strategy that we had announced to the French, with a progressive reduction in stages of 15 days, is a good strategy, which works”.
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Surgical masks: Useful or futile?
For Dr Gérald Kierzek, emergency physician and medical director of Doctissimo, “the important thing is above all to evaluate the impact of this measure, to know its effectiveness and that it is not only a political or symbolic measure. We need feedback, because we know that surgical masks protect others when you are sick yourself, but do not or very little prevent contamination. And with the contagiousness of the Omicron variant and the not very airtight side of surgical masks, we can ask ourselves the question of its usefulness”.
In addition to this assessment, the doctor pleads for the maintenance of simple barrier gestures. “In my opinion, we must continue to encourage people to wash their hands well, and to ventilate their interiors for at least 10 minutes a day. These are two simple and easy to apply measures which will also have an impact on other pathologies such as gastroenteritis or allergies.“concludes the specialist.