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Marina Carrère d'Encausse: "Health magazine is not there to reassure" on the Covid-19

2020-04-06T10:30:57.956Z


Doctor and journalist, the host of the daily program on France 5 offers a new special on the epidemic on Tuesday evening


52 minutes of live broadcast every day, and close to a million viewers. “Health Magazine”, France 5's medical meeting every day at 1:40 pm, has never recorded such audiences since its creation 22 years ago. In the front line, Marina Carrère d'Encausse, 57, considers herself, during this period of the Covid-19 epidemic, "as much a doctor as a journalist as a mother".

Your show has won 300,000 followers since confinement. Viewers who are all potential patients…

MARINA CARRÈRE D'ENCAUSSE. Yes, and potentially uncontaminated people. We therefore affect the entire population. If they continue to follow us so many, even in front of a film with Louis de Funès, it is because the information that we have given them for 20 years is purely informative, not polemical, useful. All of our words are checked.

Do you have certain texts reread?

Our journalists have their chronicles reread to the word by specialists, in particular the answers to questions from viewers. We are cautious about Sioux. We learn every day about this virus, its virulence, its possible mutations. Our role is so important that I strive for perfection, especially with larger audiences. We have never been so vigilant.

Inform and reassure on the Covid-19, is it compatible?

When we can reassure, we do it. We give the number of people healed, we question by Skype the patients out of intensive care. But wrongly reassuring is not our job. The more we give accurate information, the more we reassure, even if it is anxiety-provoking. Truth secures more than vagueness, we don't lie about anything. And we try to make people smile with funny videos, sports lessons ... People in confinement must keep their spirits up, it's good for the immune system!

Are you worried?

I am more questioning than worried. Particularly because I am not sure that the confinement is sufficiently strict or respected. And if deconfinement is progressive, will there be enough collective consciousness to respect it? I am not worried because I think that we will get out, the caregivers do not let go of the piece. Several laboratories are testing drugs, it's comforting. The solutions will arrive, I hold on to them.

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What have you changed in your work habits?

I am alone on set with two cameramen, the editorial team on site is very small, the majority of journalists are teleworking. I read every morning at home all the publications of associations of doctors and learned societies. Since I presented alone, I always have a pen in my hand, to note the smallest detail. As if I had an exam every noon.

Is it really essential to start your program with the assessment of people who have died or been placed in intensive care?

Yes, we will continue. This is a message for all French people: the more confined we are, the more these numbers will drop. It's a way of telling them: don't go to the parks even if the weather is nice. It is not to be catastrophic, but because these figures are dramatic that containment must be respected. I still see groups chatting on the street. They take risks and run a big one. Some countries have banned jogging time. Shouldn't we be more drastic?

VIDEO. At the heart of the intensive care unit of the Bordeaux University Hospital

Are you part of the medical reserve like Michel Cymes?

I did not receive a message from the Bar Council. My reserve medicine, I do it by informing every day. I want to continue presenting my shows, it's my duty as a doctor. But if they needed me, of course.

Michel Cymes made a mea culpa by declaring: "I have probably reassured the French too much". And you ?

It is so anxiety-provoking that I understand that he wanted to reassure. He was not wrong, reassuring also does good from time to time. In "Health Magazine", we are not there for that. It is a scientific program in which information is provided at the instant T, day by day. When we can reassure, I will do so with happiness.

When did you become aware of the severity of the virus and the scale of the crisis?

Early. I was immediately worried that young people were developing severe forms of the disease. But I never thought it would spread so quickly. My team and I are in constant contact with scientists. We have a network of professionals who trust us, as soon as they have new information, they explain it to us.

PODCAST. What are coronaviruses? Diving under the microscope in virus biology

You have devoted many reports to the hospital crisis for years. Was it in vain?

(Silence). Yes. Vain. It's been a year and a half that we intensively relay the crisis to the hospital. The disaster would have happened, coronavirus or not. We were going straight there. This public hospital is a marvel and we are spoiling it. I know you don't find money like that. If we are able to get out of this crisis, it is thanks to the nursing staff and their investment in saving lives. So it won't take half measures.

The publication of your new novel "Children of the Secret" has been postponed until October… You are staging an epidemic!

An Ebola-type epidemic, which arrived in France from abroad. Yet I am not a soothsayer! It is an element of the plot. Detective novels where viruses emerge have inspired me, but I wrote it last October. And I will not touch a line!

How is your mom, historian Hélène Carrère d'Encausse?

Good ! I call her twice a day. She is wisely confined, has started a new book and she is learning German!

Source: leparis

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