Going for a walk with your nose to the wind no longer become the rule, but the exception? The obligation to cover his face, already in force in 330 municipalities, including Paris since Monday, should soon make children. Tuesday, during a visit to the Montpellier University Hospital (Hérault), the Prime Minister, Jean Castex, indeed announced his desire to "ask the prefects to extend as much as possible the obligation to wear a mask in public places open ”.
Earlier today, the Defense Council also decided to extend for two months, until October 30, the ban on gatherings of more than 5,000 people, while leaving the prefects the possibility of derogating from it, in case by case.
"Tomorrow, it will be too late"
While the epidemic monitoring indicators show an intensification of the circulation of SARS-CoV-2 in the country, this turn of the screw is hailed as a necessary decision, by several specialists and doctors. “Today is the time to do it. Tomorrow, it will be too late, ”warns Anne-Claude Crémieux, professor and infectious disease specialist at Saint-Louis hospital in Paris.
According to the daily bulletin of the Directorate General of Health, 1,397 new cases of contamination were identified on Tuesday evening in the last 24 hours and 191 new people were admitted to hospital for a Covid-19 infection. Figures on the rise. The test positivity rate also climbed to 2.1% between August 2 and 8.
“We are moving slowly but surely towards a resumption of the epidemic: it is very worrying. But if people understand that wearing a mask is important, we can limit the number of cases of transmission between infected people and healthy people ”, estimates the mathematician Jean-Stéphane Dhersin.
Mobilize tirelessly
This specialist in the modeling of epidemics at CNRS and professor at Sorbonne-Paris-Nord University calls for "a clear and simple message" so that the mask is accepted as widely as possible. "It is necessary in closed places, where taking your distance is not enough, and wherever there are a lot of people," recalls Anne-Claude Crémieux.
However, among doctors, the question emerges on the advisability of drawing the anti-Covid weapon a little, a lot, everywhere ... At the risk of swelling the ranks of recalcitrant and anti-barrier gestures? "If we generalized the obligation of the mask, people would not understand this decision: in medium-sized towns, where there are few people, it is not necessary", notes Jacques Battistoni, president of the general practitioners' union. MG France, for whom “it is wise for the decision to be taken locally, where it makes sense”. And that in these places, the barrier object is well used.
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“Keeping the mask on all the time can create weariness: it is better to wear it not all the time, but wisely, that is to say without removing it and putting it back on permanently”, also judges Jean-Daniel Lelièvre, professor and infectious disease specialist at Henri-Mondor hospital in Créteil (Val-de-Marne). "Wearing your mask under your nose doesn't make any sense either," adds Jacques Battistoni. It is not worth giving yourself a clear conscience by putting it halfway. In this case, there is absolutely no barrier. "
