Review the isolation rules to avoid paralysis of the country. Olivier Véran invited the Scientific Council on Covid-19 to arrangements more suited to the rapid spread of the Omicron variant. Thursday, December 23, when France had identified more than 90,000 new cases, the Minister of Health revealed that “the isolation rules will probably change”. And to add: “Even though I can’t give the number of days in isolation yet, that will obviously change.”
Faced with the spread of the Omicron variant, the President of the Scientific Council, Jean-François Delfraissy, had alerted on “a possible societal disorganization of society, from the beginning of January, when we will have very, very many contaminations”. The professor fears that the multiplication of cases of Covid-19 will lead to an increase in sick leaves and therefore absenteeism at work.
While the government estimates that 100,000 daily contaminations will be exceeded between Christmas and New Year’s Day, the length of the isolation period in case of contact with an infected person is considered too long.
Since December 13, this duration has in fact increased to 17 days for those who are in the same household as a person positive for the Omicron variant. It has also been increased to 7 days for contact cases who live alone. And this, even if the person concerned is vaccinated and has performed a negative test. Finally, for the positive cases for this variant, ten days of isolation were required by the government.
Epidemiologist Antoine Flahault thus alerted on Twitter : “VShis disposition risks bringing the country to its knees. Knowing that on average a person infects more than 10 people, with 100,000 cases per day, that’s a million contact cases in quarantine for 7 to 17 days. “ According to him, if these isolation rules were maintained by the government in early January, “the country will be paralyzed”.
“In 7 days, the whole country will be in quarantine. Who could have designed such a provision? Isolating the positives for 5 days is useful, isolating the cases of contact with Omicron is wishful thinking.”
Antoine Flahault, epidemiologiston Twitter
Between November 1 and mid-December, the number of exceptional work stoppages for people needing to self-isolate increased more than 7 times, from 5,763 to 42,541. stop if the isolation rules should not change at the start of the school year.
A delicate situation that confirms Jean-Christophe Repon, President of the Confederation of Crafts and Small Building Enterprises: “It was already tense before this new wave. There, the contact cases and the positive cases mean that we lose manpower and it will become complicated to provide activity “, he says on franceinfo.
Among the sectors most affected, those in direct contact with the public such as hospitals, supermarkets, schools, but also public transport où the staff is sorely lacking. Already toccluded by the fifth wave, the SNCF has already had to cancel regional trains but the phenomenon remains for the moment “local and marginal”, according to management.
This is why the Minister of Labor Elisabeth Borne asked companies to “to strenghten” recourse to telework from the start of the school year. But according to a Harris firm survey, 44% of working people say it is impossible for them to work remotely.