According to Arnaud Fontanet, epidemiologist at the Institut Pasteur and member of the Scientific Council, the health catastrophe was avoided, partly thanks to the behavior of the French.
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“The worst-case scenario is moving away, the decline has begun (…) We have the feeling that the peak is passing in front of our eyes”, said Arnaud Fontanet, epidemiologist at the Institut Pasteur and member of the Scientific Council, Monday January 17 on France Inter.
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According to him, “the peak of infections has passed these days, perhaps last week in the Ile-de-France region” and “a little later for the other French regions“.
“The number of Covid-19 infections will decrease considerably during the month of February and in March we should be at a very low level”, he said, adding that it is “projections” which take into account a number of assumptions”. According to him, “the health disaster was avoided, in part thanks to the behavior of the French”, because “we could have had a much worse situation if there had not been a collective effort since the beginning of January” who allowed the “reduction in the number of contacts”.
However, Arnaud Fontanet warned that “hospital admissions could still continue to increase for a few more days“because of the “lag between infections and hospital admissions”. “Hospitals can be expected to remain very busy throughout the month of February”, he said, while the Omicron variant “took over” on the Delta variant and corresponds to “90%” variants tested even “if it is not said that this balance will remain”. “It is not excluded that the Delta variant will rise in the coming weeks while remaining at much lower levels” than currently, the epidemiologist cautiously warned.