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"The Covid doesn't really have a season": why contamination is increasing despite the heat wave

2022-06-18T05:52:11.310Z


An incidence rate that is on the rise again, scientists worried... The Covid-19 is on the rise again and the heat will not stop it, since this vir


The weather is nice, it's hot, even scorching, and yet the Covid-19 figures have not been good for ten days: 53,081 cases of contamination recorded Thursday in 24 hours, with an incidence rate that has more than doubled in around fifty departments including Gard, Lot, Vienne, according to the latest data from Public Health France.

In Paris, twice as many positive cases for the virus were recorded last week…

“The epidemic curve is exponential in France, it looks like a new wave” warns epidemiologist Antoine Flahault, director of the Institute of Global Health in Geneva, while Omicron has been raging on the planet for nine months now.

“We have undoubtedly overestimated the temperature as a factor in curbing contamination, warns Philippe Amouyel, professor at the Lille University Hospital.

Unlike the flu virus, which is typically a winter virus, Covid-19 is not one, it does not really have a season, ”sums up the scientist.

At best, "a brake" to hope for

Past studies, however, tended to prove the opposite… It was said that this virus allergic to heat, people evoked the possibility of 25°C as a threshold allowing it to be interrupted and stabilized.

“It is true that this virus does not like heat and dry air, it prefers rather temperate temperatures with a lot of humidity, this allows it to spread faster, but it would be illusory to think that even the “The current heat wave will stop the contagions, at most it will put a brake on them”, deciphers Philippe Amouyel, while pointing out other factors which could prove to be much more decisive in the weeks to come.

Read alsoEpidemic rebound in France: what do the recent waves in South Africa and Portugal teach us?

First, the share of BA4 and BA5 viruses, these sub-variants of Omicron, much more contagious than their little brothers BA1 and BA2, continues to climb among infected people.

“They are at the origin of the epidemic peak that Portugal has just passed, these sub-lineages are now arriving in our country in a staggered way” explains the epidemiologist.

"The protective effect of the vaccine is weakening"

With what force?

“If this is not already the case, these hypercontagious sub-variants will very quickly represent half of the contaminations while the immunity conferred by the vaccines is in the process of weakening”, underlines Philippe Amouyel.

It was in February that the campaign for the third dose ended, that of the fourth dose having been very little followed... "We are entering a zone of vulnerability with people for whom the protective effect of the vaccine is weakening", points to the researcher.

This is all the more problematic “as a recent study showed that when one was infected with BA2, the vaccine only protected for a period of four months and not six.

This seems to indicate that these sub-lineages of Omicron are rather of the costal type compared to existing vaccines”, adds the professor of public health.

Read alsoEpidemic rebound in France: what do the recent waves in South Africa and Portugal teach us?

This broth of ingredients explains why scientists are agitated and go back to the front, for fear of a new wave in the fall.

If the weather is not the alpha and omega of contamination control, as we also saw last summer, how then can we curb it?

From next month, the French will take the road to vacation, get together with family.

Overall, being outdoors generally has the effect of calming epidemics, but with Covid-19, you have to be wary of generalities.

“It is better to avoid crowds, hugs and put the mask back on public transport and if you belong to the categories at risk, opt for the fourth dose”, advises Philippe Amouyel.

Let summer come, the Covid-19 does not care.

As long as he can, he will continue to chart his course.

This is what it shares best with other viruses!

Source: leparis

All life articles on 2022-06-18

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