“There is no quick fix, there is a series of small progress that can be made.
This is the message delivered this Wednesday by Jean-François Delfraissy, president of the Scientific Council, to the deputies.
Like the rest of Europe, France has been experiencing a surge in contamination for several weeks, which is starting to be felt in hospitals.
To respond, the government is counting on vaccination and, more particularly, the reminders that it has extended to the entire adult population already vaccinated.
This campaign is essential to prevent the current wave from overloading hospitals, said Delfraissy, recalling that vaccines lose effectiveness over the months.
However, he expressed his skepticism about the merits of compulsory vaccination, in particular the program of the future German government.
"How do we (...) control?"
", He asked, doubting" to send the gendarmes "to the elderly, isolated and unvaccinated.
Omicron uncertainties
At the same time, Mr. Delfraissy deemed it crucial to better respect barrier gestures, such as wearing a mask, citing forecasts published earlier this week by the Pasteur Institute.
According to them, it suffices to respect these gestures a little better now to considerably reduce the peak of hospitalizations planned for the beginning of 2022.
He also underlined the uncertainties linked to the new Omicron variant, identified in South Africa, recalling that we still did not know anything about its dangerousness and its contagiousness.
Read also Omicron variant: transmissibility, symptoms, vaccine resistance ... All that is still unknown
This variant, which has led several countries to close their borders, presents an exceptionally high number of mutations, the nature of which theoretically gives rise to fear of greater resistance to vaccines.
It is likely that the existing vaccines are less effective against Omicron, admitted Mr. Delfraissy, but "we do not know at what level it will be".
However, this does not call into question the merits of the current vaccination campaign, according to him, because it is immediately a question of absorbing a wave linked to the Delta variant, hegemonic in Europe.
Omicron, assuming it takes precedence over Delta, "will take some time to settle," said Mr. Delfraissy, estimating that it would take several weeks.
