Michaël Rochoy, general practitioner in Outreau (Pas-de-Calais), member of the collective “Du Côté de la science” and co-founder of the collective “Stop-Postillons”, denounced Monday, December 27 on franceinfo “Jean-Michel Blanquer’s strategy” who is “a school which is open, of course, but where the virus circulates widely”.
>> DIRECT. Omicron variant: the French strategy suspended from a new health defense council
He signed this weekend in the Sunday Newspaper a forum with 50 professionals to demand the postponement of the start of the new school year, schools being a place where the Omicron variant is widely circulated. “In the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, currently, among the primary, the incidence rate is at 1,575 today, in the Drôme at 1,504”, he said.
franceinfo: Is the return of the mask outside a necessary measure?
Michaël Rochoy: Yes. The Omicron is more transmissible. The outdoor mask is of interest in places that are dense, such as Christmas markets, queues when going for a PCR test and therefore potentially ill. Other than that, it doesn’t matter much if you’re alone in the street. Obviously, you are not going to transmit the virus when there is no one around you. This is not an essential issue, it allows us to show that we are doing something. What would be more relevant is to close certain places where transmissions take place. Since March 2020, there are plenty of studies that have shown what these places were. Schools and restaurants are places where the virus is transmitted. When we have allowed the virus to circulate too massively and we have incidence rates that are as high as we currently know with 100,000 cases per day, we must assume the decision not to have done prevention because that a wave is a prevention failure. And therefore assume the failure of prevention and take more therapeutic measures this time, and therefore close restaurants, for example.
According to our information, there will be no postponement of the start of the school year as you request. Do you regret it?
I am very surprised that there will be a Health Defense Council that will come into play and a Council of Ministers for which we already have the answers. We know he’s going to have the mask outside. We know that school is not going to be postponed. We know that the restaurants will not be closed and we know, fortunately, that there will be no curfew. We wonder what they are going to be able to discuss on this basis. Everyone wants schools to be open. We want schools to be open. There are two strategies. There are people who want the school to be open and secure with a level 3 or 4 school protocol, that is to say that there is no mixing of students in the canteen, that There is also no indoor sport without a mask. This is the case at the level of the level 2 protocol. We want a school that is open, but secure, that is to say with a low incidence rate. If we look for example in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence currently among the primary, the incidence rate is at 1,575 today, in the Drôme at 1,504. You have about fifteen departments where the rate of incidence is more than one thousand and almost all the departments have an incidence rate which is higher than 500 among the primary ones.
We are going to make this re-entry under these conditions, knowing that when we had made the re-entry on All Saints’ Day, it was with an incidence rate of around 100. We start from an incidence rate which is higher with a variant which is more transmissible, which happens. This is not a secure school! So what we wanted was not the school that was closed, but education that was done at a distance for at least two weeks, while the incidence rate fell to be able to resume a secure school with a low incidence rate and of course, with a protocol at level 3, one-case closure. What is chosen is a school which is open, of course, but where the virus circulates widely. This is the strategy of Jean-Michel Blanquer. This is what led to this wave that we know.
The government wants to implement the vaccine pass from January 15. Will all people have time to be vaccinated?
No. It’s a real problem because we always end up with this kind of situation. It’s just not possible! We are overloaded. Overall, many vaccine centers have closed. Some have remained open, but they are run by general practitioners, nurses, people who work nearby. This afternoon, I have about ten vaccinations, tomorrow I do 20. Thursday, I vaccinate 5-11 year olds. All this takes time on my schedule and my schedule is overflowing. There are millions of people to be vaccinated in two weeks. We are not going to be able to succeed. Our slots are full. We have no visibility either. My pharmacy does not know if I will have Pfizer by January 11. I have 7 slots which are taken, but I do not know if I will have the bottle.