“It’s consistency with what the French want to hear”, noted on Friday January 21 on franceinfo Professor Gilles Pialoux, head of the infectious and tropical diseases department at the Tenon hospital in Paris, while the Prime Minister, Jean Castex, presented the day before a timetable for lifting health restrictions. Corn “it’s a bit like the advent calendar, we open doors, we don’t know what’s behind it very clearly”, he pointed out.
>> The latest information on the Covid epidemic in our live.
“It’s a way of giving prospects to the French” so “in this sense there is a coherence”, corn “from a health point of view, it is out of step with the opinion of the Scientific Council” added the one who is also the author of We weren’t ready: a diary in times of coronavirus, published in August 2020 by Jean-Claude Lattès.
franceinfo: Does the government’s plan seem consistent with the epidemiological situation?
Gilles Pialoux: I think it’s consistent with what the French want to hear. I think that the French no longer see the figures scrolling by on the continuous news channels when the minister speaks.
“Yesterday it was 425,183 cases and 251 deaths. We don’t see those numbers anymore.”
Gilles Pialoux, infectiologistat franceinfo
It is a way of giving prospects to the French. And in that sense, there is consistency, yes. In terms of health, it is still a little out of step with the advice of the Scientific Council.
What indicator should be observed, that of intensive care units?
With regard to Omicron, which still has absolutely staggering figures, we must also look at viral circulation. There, there is still something amazing, once again, it’s the school’s blind spot. These are measures that are announced without a threshold for lifting the constraints, but above all, without a threshold for recovery, that is to say reactivity if things start again with this variant or another variant. At school level, it’s still amazing. The start of the last Christmas holidays shows the 0-9 year old bracket, we had a staggering increase with incidence figures which are beyond 4,000, and even 5,000 for 10-19 year olds. It’s a bit like the advent calendar, we open doors, we don’t know what’s behind very clearly. The idea that after the February holidays, we will have a reduction, the arms fall to me.
Do you think the French couldn’t hear anything other than what the Prime Minister announced on Thursday evening?
I think we are in saturation. But it is the virus which is always the master of time, as the President of the Republic said.
“We can finally give pledges of relief to the French, but reality is catching up with us. France is still in a more complicated situation than other European countries, contrary to what is sometimes said.”
Gilles Pialoux, infectiologistat franceinfo
In particular compared to Germany or Spain, because we have a base of Delta infection on which to fix the wave of Omicron which is very high, which explains this hospital tension. Both politicians and auditors have understood that the hospital will hold. But you have to see the price it costs on a human level, it’s two years of a pandemic. It’s very hard, indeed, in hospitals, but I think everyone has understood that it’s not going to break, just exhausting.
Are we safe from a 6th wave?
No one can say that. Moreover, it was not said, Thursday evening, by the ministers. Nobody can say that, because what Omicron made us understand that from a moment when you have viral circulations as intense as we see precisely in the 0-19 year old bracket or in the thirties, you have room for a variant exhaust. The purpose of the escape variant is by definition to escape the immune response whether it is induced by the vaccine, by the monoclonal antibodies or by the previous infection. No one can write that page.