“The epidemic is not over”, said this Friday on franceinfo, the president of the Scientific Council Jean-François Delfraissy. But “the peak of the seventh wave has passed in terms of contamination”, he specified. The President of the Scientific Council, who will disappear in a few days, is now pleading for the creation of a “Science Council” to “to improve relations between scientists and French authorities”.
An unstable situation at the hospital
If the peak of the seventh wave has passed, “there is always a lag of about a fortnight between contamination and hospitalizations”specifies all the same Jean-François Delfraissy. “So we will continue to have a significant impact at the hospital level. We have the tools to cope. There may be a moment of significant tension in certain French areas since there are significant population movements with the holidays, for example on the coast, in Languedoc, in the South-West. An influx that could create tensions in early August, warns the scientist.
If the situation improves, it is also because “we have been dealing with the Omicron variant, since the end of December, and with these little cousins that are B1, BA2, BA4, BA5, which are very transmissible” but which are not severe. “It shows that this virus continues to evolve and that the epidemic is not over. But […] everything collapses if we are dealing with a virus that is severe.” This is not currently the case, welcomes Jean-François Delfraissy.
Despite everything, we must not relax our vigilance insists the president of the Scientific Council. “We have the vaccines and vaccination is the heart of the war against this virus.” This week, moreover, the government extended the second booster dose of the vaccine to pregnant women, people at risk and those around them.
The Scientific Council will end on July 31 after almost two and a half years of activity
These are surely the last recommendations of the Scientific Council born in mid-March 2020 at the request of Emmanuel Macron, since he will bow out on July 31. He will be replaced by a new committee that the government is in the process of setting up, announces Jean-François Delfraissy. “This committee will be larger and will have to deal with all health crises, particularly in the field of infectious diseases but also perhaps in the environment.” According to the scientist, “a number of members of the Council” present will also sit there.
“And then, we are also asking for the creation of a new object for France, which is the Science Council”concludes Jean-François Delfraissy. “Because we realized, during this crisis, that the interactions between very high-level scientists and the French authorities could still be improved.”