On the eve of the end of the year celebrations, the prospect of big meals and family reunions warms hearts but worries souls.
At a time when the indicators of the evolution of Covid-19 in France seem to be on the rise again, many fear, with the cold and even more the mixing of populations at Christmas which could promote the circulation of the virus, the arrival of 'a "third wave" of the epidemic.
Pr Jean-François Delfraissy, president of the Scientific Council on Covid-19, thus considered Tuesday, in an interview with Parisien-Today in France, that it was a "significant" risk.
The example of the United States, where Thanksgiving family reunions were followed by a record number of contaminations is hardly reassuring.
"The art of breaking the rules"
"We are heading straight for a third wave after mid-January," predicted disappointed Professor Jean-Paul Stahl, infectious disease specialist at Grenoble University Hospital (Isère).
Why?
“The art of breaking the rules is unfortunately a national sport,” he replies.
Nobody wants to understand that the instructions (table of six and curfew for New Year's Eve) are not dictated by a crazy government, nor by a sadistic administration.
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However, we should not count on vaccination, which could begin in the last week of December, to stop the epidemic "because it will first concern the elderly, who are not those who infect the most people, and because the vaccines will protect the most serious forms of Covid, but we do not know whether they prevent transmission, ”insists Morgane Bomsel, virologist at the Cochin Institute.
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As for depriving yourself of Christmas to protect your loved ones, “this complicated choice is eminently personal.
But if we want to get together, we must be able to keep the mask or if we have a garden, eat outside, ”she advises seriously.
"When it comes to Covid, our actions count"
So is a new outbreak of Covid inevitable?
“We are talking about a third wave, but it is not a body of water that we expect on a beach and against which we humans can do nothing.
When it comes to Covid, our actions count.
We must be able to avoid it, ”replies Jean-Stéphane Dhersin, deputy scientific director of the National Institute of Mathematical Sciences and their interactions of the CNRS (Insmi-CNRS).
This mathematician specializing in epidemic modeling set up the MODCOV19 platform in February to monitor the latest coronavirus.
Looking in the rearview mirror of this year's Covid, he finds reason for hope.
Public actions and awareness of the French have already worked.
“For example, during the deconfinement in May, when we thought that the epidemic would automatically resume, that was not the case.
Because we had collectively taken hold of barrier gestures, ”he recalls.
Of course, from the start of the summer, statisticians saw the risk of a second wave coming.
"The re-containment has borne fruit, since the R0 indicator monitored like milk on the fire was down to 0.5 (
Editor's note: it is estimated that the epidemic is active when it goes above 1
)", indicates- he does.
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Since then, for reasons still not well established, a possible relaxation, but also perhaps the cold, the number of infected people tends to increase.
“The R0 is at 1.1 against 0.58 a fortnight ago, it's not good.
But it suffices for it to fall below 1 for the third wave to be avoided, ”insists the scientist.
