A moment of respite on the eve of the weekend. This Friday evening, the Minister of Health announced that there were no new confirmed cases of coronavirus on French soil. However, faced with the strengthening of the alert level, triggered by the WHO, Agnès Buzyn requested the holding of a European council of health ministers. And for good reason, the epidemic has already affected 9,890 people across 23 countries and has killed more than 250 in China. After welcoming the first French returnees from southern Wuhan, the Chinese home of the epidemic, in the south of France, the minister announced the establishment of a toll-free number. The 0.800.130.000 should be called for any questions about this virus. In case of symptoms, the 15 remains the reference. With several experts, we decipher the true from the false about the epidemic.
VIDEO. 5 things to know about the repatriation of the French from Wuhan
Containment is useful
TRUE. Nearly 180 French returnees from Wuhan are now "confined" to a holiday center in Carry-le-Rouet (Bouches-du-Rhône), chosen for its proximity to a reference structure in infectious diseases. Even if this measure is not the absolute weapon (it would require a total confinement, a measure reserved for sick people), infectiologists, like Professor François Bricaire, are unanimous: "Yes, confinement is useful insofar as this greatly limits contact with the outside world and therefore the possible spread of the virus. If a person inside the group were to contract it, they could very quickly be taken care of by specialists. On the spot, preventively, the temperature of the returnees is taken twice a day.
The risk of displacing returnees should not be taken
FALSE. Residents of Carry-le-Rouet have expressed their concern at being near people potentially carrying the virus. "The risk of spread is extremely low, even zero," said François Bricaire. Not abandoning one's compatriots abroad, faced with a health risk, is also one of the French values. “Rationally, we could say to ourselves: aren't we opening Pandora's box? concedes Isabelle Imbert, CNRS researcher in Aix-Marseille, specialist in coronaviruses. But in view of the precautionary system in place, this repatriation seems - humanly - to be the right decision, ”she believes.
Mortality is on the rise
FALSE. The number of deaths is certainly increasing, but according to the latest figures, the mortality rate linked to the new coronavirus which was 3% worldwide is now 2%. Good news… which must be taken with great caution due to the speed of the evolution of the epidemic and a large number of unknown data. "Perhaps there are more cases than expected, perhaps there will be a jump in mortality, explained, very cautious, Yazdan Yazdanpanah, head of the infectious diseases department at the hospital Bichat, in Paris. We will know more in the coming days. At the international level, a cohort of patients will be set up to refine these figures.
It is very contagious
TRUE. The new coronavirus seems to be spreading as fast as the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) which killed 900 people in China in 2002-2003. What is called R0 (Rzéro), that is to say the average number of contaminations for a case, is 2.2 for this new virus against 2 for Sras. But he remains less aggressive than his cousin, whose death rate was around 10%. It is also much less contagious than measles. As a reminder, with this one, an affected person contaminates between 15 and 20. Much more deadly, the latter caused 5000 deaths in 2019 in the Democratic Republic of Congo alone.
But an unknown factor remains about this new virus: can we transmit it before having the symptoms? "We can't say," explains Eric d'Ortenzio, epidemiologist and scientific coordinator at Inserm. There is a description of a group of patients which shows that there would be contamination in China before the onset of symptoms, but only one to two cases are concerned. "
There are sprays against the virus
FALSE. Protect yourself from the coronavirus with a sanitizing spray, for only 19.90 euros. Attractive, but lying. And yet, this promise has indeed been kept in pharmacies, supporting photos posted on social networks. "I have no words, I am so dismayed," gets carried Carine Wolf-Thal, president of the Order of pharmacists who seeks to identify the pharmacies concerned in order to initiate disciplinary proceedings. “We are touching quackery. Before being traders, we are health professionals whose role is to deliver good information, not to play on the anxiety of the population ", says the pharmacist, who recalls that there is no" preventive solutions ", if not the barrier measures: wash your hands regularly, sneeze in your elbow, use a tissue only once and throw it away ..." And as this also applies to the flu, she notes, it does not hurt to remember! "
It could disappear as quickly as it happened
TRUE. No one can predict it, but the coronavirus could quite imitate its cousin the Sras. In 2002, this acute respiratory syndrome had pointed its nose at exactly the same period, in December, before spreading at high speed in January 2003. "It left as it had come, on tiptoe, in March 2003 ”, recalls researcher Isabelle Imbert. How? 'Or' What ? “We managed to contain the epidemic. As soon as a patient was diagnosed, he was quarantined, she said, adding, wanting to be reassuring: At the time, we did not have all these alert systems. Today, we reacted much stronger and much faster. "