The Covid-19 epidemic is once again disrupting the holiday season. “More than a million French people are currently positive for the coronavirus” and “10% of the French population is in contact”, declared the Minister of Health, Olivier Véran, before the Committee of Laws of the Assembly, Wednesday, December 29.
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As others must have done at Christmas, many French people are therefore forced to isolate themselves, rather than going to their family or meeting with friends to celebrate the New Year. In order not to be alone, some have had the idea of organizing New Years Eve between people who tested positive for Covid-19. But is it a good or a bad idea?
“If you are a carrier of Covid-19 and are in good shape to spend New Years Eve, why not?” answers Karine Blanckaert, public health hygienist at the Nantes University Hospital (Loire-Atlantique). The expert nonetheless calls for caution. The most important thing, when you are positive for Covid-19, she emphasizes, is “not to be with people whose status is unknown or whose status is negative, because everything must be done not to expose them to the virus”. According to her, there is no high risk, for people positive for Covid-19, to be found among themselves, as long as they do not see anyone else.
Karine Blanckaert draws a parallel with the medical community: “At the hospital, we do what are called Covid units. We bring together all Covid patients in the same sector, because it avoids contaminating other people in other units. It is classic in The epidemics.“ On the other hand, if people positive for Covid-19 decide to regroup, there is no question of taking public transport or going to a store to buy a bottle, so as not to expose other people to the virus.
“It is better to be delivered and not to go shopping, so as not to expose others to the outside.”
Karine Blanckaert, medical officer of healthto franceinfo
The medical officer of health also recalls the importance of not abandoning barrier gestures: wash your hands, wear a mask, ventilate the rooms …
A warning shared by Mahmoud Zureik, professor of epidemiology and public health at the University of Versailles-Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines and director of Epi-Phare, joined by franceinfo. According to him, getting together with positive people for New Year’s Eve “is not reasonable”. Going for New Years Eve with another person positive for Covid-19 is de facto breaking the isolation. “VS‘is taking the risk of infecting other people in transport, in stores, by going to get a bottle at the supermarket “, he emphasizes.
Karine Blanckaert warns, however, against possible risks of reinfection for people who have contracted Covid-19 and who are exposed again to the virus, which can, in rare cases, lead to serious forms, notes the doctor. . Be careful also, she notes, to co-infections. It is, in fact, possible to contract another disease, viral or bacterial, when one is already infected with Covid-19. An American meta-analysis (in English), carried out by researchers at the University of Wisconsin, published in May and covering more than a hundred studies, showed that 19% of patients infected with Covid-19 were also infected with co-infection. This work also highlights the risks of superinfection, that is to say of co-infection by two distinct viral strains at two distinct times during the disease: 24% of the patients studied presented superinfection. However, the authors conclude that the presence of co-infection or superinfection increases the risks for the patient, including the risk of mortality.
Mahmoud Zureik also raises two other concerns, still at the stage of hypotheses. According to the professor of epidemiology, there is, in such gatherings, a possibility of being contaminated by a variant other than the one of which the infected person is already a carrier.
“If someone in front of you is infected with the Omicron variant and you are a carrier of the Delta variant, they may be infecting you.”
Mahmoud Zureikat franceinfo, professor of epidemiology
A case of co-infection with two variants of Covid-19 at the same time was thus documented in Belgium in a 90-year-old patient in July.
Another concern of the specialist: it is possible that being between people positive for Covid-19 could increase the viral load of people present already infected, which would expose them to “a risk of developing more symptomatic and more serious forms”. As a result, “a positive person should isolate himself so as not to infect others, decides the epidemiologist. Partying, drinking alcohol, or exercising can make symptoms that were initially mild or worse.“
For Olivier Bouchaud, infectious disease specialist at the Avicenne hospital in Bobigny (Seine-Saint-Denis), requested by franceinfo, “from an epidemiological point of view, the question is easy to decide”. For young people, without risk factors, “it’s not too dramatic”, but for the fragile people around them, it increases the risk that they will contract Covid-19 and develop serious forms requiring hospitalization, or even a passage in intensive care.
“Having New Years Eve with people who know they are positive is not the best idea.”
Olivier Bouchaud, infectious disease specialistto franceinfo
It is more reasonable, according to him, to spend New Years Eve between people with a negative self-test. If this does not entirely eliminate the risk that one of the guests is positive, it is, according to him “a good way to limit the risks”.
Doctor recognizes that in the medium or long term, “we cannot be in a diehard position”. If from a purely epidemiological point of view, all links between people should be blocked, according to him “we must take into account the importance of family or friendships” and “especially during this important period of the end of year celebrations“. Indeed, for the infectious disease specialist, “We have to take a long-term view, because we are not done with this virus that we are going to drag around for years.”