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Confinement on weekends? "Nice could be a laboratory for the rest of the country"

2021-02-21T19:49:32.901Z


Containment only on Saturdays and Sundays remains the preferred avenue in the Alpes-Maritimes, where the Covid-19 epidemic is blazing. A


On Sundays, Vanessa and her partner spend most of their time "going in circles".

In addition to confinement, this Portuguese couple in their thirties is experimenting with the additional restrictions of the weekend, decreed in Portugal to break the deadly Covid-19 epidemic.

On Saturdays, shops close at 1 p.m. - 5 p.m. for supermarkets - and only reopen on Monday.

It is also impossible during this period to travel between municipalities without showing a white footing.

"To go to work, I need two declarations, one saying that teleworking is impossible, the other to cross prohibited geographical areas", says this domestic worker in a hotel in Setúbal, 50 km south of Lisbon .

Nice, the fifth largest city in France, and its neighbors on the coast, are they taking the same route as the Portuguese?

To limit family and friendly gatherings and prevent the flow of sun-seeking tourists, many elected officials in the Alpes-Maritimes are pushing for partial containment at weekends.

But the decision was still not taken this Sunday evening by the top of the state.

Be a field of experimentation

A seal only at the end of the week?

"It would be a first in mainland France," recalls the professor of epidemiology Mahmoud Zureik.

The department would become a laboratory for the rest of the country, a life-size test to measure the effectiveness of the measure or its ineffectiveness.

“Clearly, if it works on the Côte d'Azur, an application in areas in great tension could be considered: Moselle, Hauts-de-France, even Ile-de-France.

"We would become a field of experimentation for others," abounds Professor Charles-Hugo Marquette.

But for now, the head of pneumology at the Nice University Hospital is mainly to (re) count the beds.

"Whatever the decision, the hospital leaves in c ..." he breathes.

Already, operations are postponed, patient transfers organized, Covid units are opening.

“Calm is not for now, the positivity rate of contact cases is enormous, around 22%.

Mathematically, this involves other serious patients to come.

"

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Confinement at weekends, discouraged tourists, generalized mask ... the tracks facing the Covid-19 in Nice


Does the doctor believe that weekend confinement can be a game-changer?

“This technique is economically defensible, to preserve trade and craftsmanship.

But I don't know if it is epidemic tenable, ”he replies.

“It depends on the objective: if it is to relieve things a little, to reduce the incidence rate from 700 to 300 for example, it can pass.

But if we want to control the situation, that will probably not be enough, ”points out Mahmoud Zureik.

He agrees: difficult to predict a result when there is no point of comparison.

The example of Guyana

Apart from Portugal, which tightened the screws at the weekend in addition to its confinement, only Bogotá, the Colombian capital with seven million inhabitants, implemented the measure at the beginning of the year.

In Guyana, strict confinement from Saturday 7 p.m. to Monday 5 a.m. was decided in January, but it has since been lifted.

Is this what allowed the Overseas region to experience its current "epidemic honeymoon", with only ten cases recorded this Saturday?

“I would rather say that it is due to an accumulation of measures.

The sharp decline is linked to the curfew put in place very early, 6 p.m., then 5 p.m.

To this was added Sunday.

It was a tool, ”decrypts Clara de Bort, director of the regional health agency in Guyana.

Still, one point bothers the public health specialist, Mahmoud Zureik.

“Containment at the weekend, that means that its application will only be in six days.

Three days of consultation, six days of application ... faced with the speed of the virus, I am not sure that we are this luxury of time.

"

Source: leparis

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