“I say sorry because we were wrong” on the masks at the start of the pandemic, recognizes Olivier Véran

“I say sorry because we were wrong“About the management of wearing a mask at the start of the Covid-19 crisis in France in 2020, acknowledged Monday, September 12 on France Inter the former Minister of Health, now government spokesperson, Olivier Véran .

.@olivierveran on the government’s hesitation on masks during the Covid: “We made a mistake, we followed recommendations that were not the right ones” #le7930inter pic.twitter.com/42ZPEyiHqv

– France Inter (@franceinter) September 12, 2022

As part of the publication of his book behind the scenes of the health crisis during his term as minister, Oliver Véran was invited to return to the management of masks at the start of the health crisis. The government then considered wearing a mask as unnecessary. The Minister of Health at the time, Agnes Buzyn, for example, declared in January 2020 that “the blue mask does not protect“. In March 2020, then-government spokeswoman Sibeth Ndiaye also stated that “it’s not necessary when you’re not sick“.

The mask subsequently became compulsory in transport and then in all enclosed spaces and in the street. “We followed recommendations that weren’t the right ones and probably we should have done differently“, believes today Olivier Véran. “We were wrong scientifically, but then it was about the international scientific recommendations“, he defends himself.

“In February, March and April 2020, all WHO recommendations [l’Organisation mondiale de la santé]international scientific committees, write in black and white that wearing a mask in the general population is not useful against Covid“, he continues. “By following scientific recommendations, by telling the French that they should not wear a mask in the population, we were wrong“.

The current government spokesperson, however, denies having “knowingly masked the mask shortage by saying that it is useless“.