When can we do without the mask outdoors?
"Soon", ruled Monday the Minister of Health Olivier Véran ors of a special program on BFMTV, without however risking to give a date.
“We are not there yet in France.
We will get there soon, ”he replied, questioned by the channel about this deadline.
“When you are outside, in the center of a big city, with lots of shops, you will queue outside, you will eat, you will meet people etc.
There, as long as we do not have an adequate level of vaccination coverage, it seems more prudent to maintain the obligation to wear a mask, ”he nevertheless qualified.
On the other hand, "if you are alone or a few in a very large space, very ventilated like a beach, a mountain, a forest, a park, a deserted street, then we must be able to be quickly brought back to the obligation. wearing a mask in this situation, ”said the minister.
"If the circulation of the virus continues to decline, it will be quickly considered," he added.
"The biggest risk we would take is to go too fast"
Olivier Véran said he was reserved about the policy of the United States where the mask is no longer necessary for those who are vaccinated.
President “Joe Biden made a very important communication saying 'wear the mask or get vaccinated'.
The immediate effect, and this has been widely criticized in the United States for three to four days, is a drop in adherence to vaccination.
[…] We must be careful ”, considered the Minister of Health
Read alsoCovid-19: the Americans drop the mask ... when our turn?
“The biggest risk we would take is to go too fast too hard, to say: 'let's go, let's go'. And in a month, in three weeks, say: 'friends, there is a problem, the virus is increasing again, there are hospitalizations, we are closing up,' ”he said. "The countries which went too quickly, too soon, and which were forced to go back, it was extremely badly lived".
The French will regain - a little - of their previous life from Wednesday and they owe it in particular to the decline, slow but continuous, of the epidemic in the country. On Monday, the number of patients admitted to critical care services continues to decline, with 4,186 patients suffering from severe forms of the disease being treated there. This is a little less than the day before when 4,255 were treated there. Other data on Monday, the health authorities still identified 22,749 Covid-19 patients hospitalized in French establishments, against 22,963 patients treated on Sunday.