While 76.8% of the French population has received at least one vaccine injection, contaminations are on the rise again in our country, on Tuesday the bar of 30,000 contaminations per day was exceeded, nearly double what was observed. there are still ten days. According to the World Health Organization, the virulence of the Delta variant could explain this resumption of the epidemic, it would indeed reduce the protection against transmission of anti-covid vaccines to 40%. The President of the WHO calls for a renewed respect for barrier gestures. The Minister of Health, Olivier Véran will announce this Thursday new measures to deal with the fifth wave of the epidemic.
“Vaccines save lives, but they do not completely prevent the transmission of Covid-19”, explained Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus during a regular press briefing devoted to the pandemic, which is wreaking havoc in Europe. “There is data to suggest that before the arrival of the Delta variant, vaccines reduced transmission by about 60%, with Delta this dropped to 40%.”, he stressed. “In many countries and communities, we fear that there is this misconception that vaccines have ended the pandemic, and that people who are vaccinated no longer need to take other precautions.”, he added.
“Last week, more than 60% of Covid infections and deaths worldwide occurred in Europe”, recalled Dr Tedros, adding that “this huge number of cases is reflected in an unbearable burden on health systems and exhausted health workers”. With more than 2.5 million cases and nearly 30,000 deaths recorded in the past week, the Old Continent is by far the region of the world most affected by the pandemic, according to official data collected by AFP. And the trend remains on the rise.
Europe, the new epicenter of the epidemic
On Tuesday, WHO Europe was alarmed by the “grip” of Covid-19 in Europe, which could kill 700,000 more on the continent by spring, in addition to the 1.5 million deaths already enumerated. “If you watch the developments closely, people in Europe are at pre-pandemic levels of social interactions, of gatherings and a lot of other things, despite being in the midst of a very resurgent resurgence. , very strong cases and for some countries enormous pressure on health systems “, denounced Michael Ryan, WHO director in charge of emergency situations.
“The reality is that the virus will continue to be transmitted intensely in this type of environment”, he warned, while winter forces people to spend more time indoors and makes them more reluctant to ventilate, not to mention that after two years of pandemic a certain fed up ‘is installed.