“Probably we have to completely review the testing strategy”, said Monday on franceinfo Antoine Flahault, epidemiologist, director of the Institute of Global Health at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Geneva. According to him, “we must prioritize” testing of certain groups of the population, “like Israel” the fact, because “Too much testing kills the ability to have tests very quickly for people and groups of people who need them very badly”.
“Children are part of the groups that must be given high priority, given priority, because a large number of them are not eligible for vaccination, those under 5 years old, and the others are not very vaccinated”, insisted the epidemiologist, while recalling the need for vaccination of the youngest. Antoine Flahault also mentioned the possibility of screening them directly “in class, at school, on sputum, on the whole class rather than on the occasion of individual screenings”.
Other categories to be favored in the screening strategy, the immunocompromised, who “can now benefit from treatments that prevent severe forms” if they are detected positive quickly, and the elderly to whom we owe “guarantee the possibility of having, at any time, a test quickly done with a result quickly available”. “If there are too many tests done, I fear that we will clog the system so much that we slow it down, that we saturate it and that we will not be able to respond to the prevention of severe forms in these patients. people, in these population groups “, lamented Antoine Flahault.
Moreover, in the face of development “mind-boggling” of this pandemic wave and the daily contaminations that “probably go beyond the 300,000 contaminations per day in France”, the epidemiologist considers that the “test, trace, isolate” of the government is no longer “adapted”. “Omicron has a short incubation period, maybe 3 days instead of 5-6 days before, so we waste time in terms of tracing”, he said. In addition, facing Omicron who “pierces the immune dams for transmission, not for severe forms”, Antoine Flahault assured that vaccination remains especially important “to avoid severe forms”, not to curb the spread of the virus.