Twelve patient associations urge the government to impose the mask in transport, pharmacies and crowded stores during these end-of-year celebrations.
Here is their platform.
France is facing an unprecedented situation.
Three concomitant epidemics threaten it: a ninth wave of Covid, the early arrival of the flu, and the intense circulation of bronchiolitis.
The risks are very clear: they concern not only the most fragile, but also our hospital system, which could find itself overwhelmed, on the eve of the end of year celebrations.
Limited means to fight against this “triple epidemic”
Vaccination against influenza and Covid is a strategy of primary importance.
But the shoe pinches since, by the admission of the Minister of Health, the levels of vaccination are very insufficient.
The Covid and flu vaccination campaigns this fall have so far been a bitter failure.
Whatever the reasons, and even if we manage to turn the tide, which we can only sincerely hope, it now seems too late for vaccination alone to be able to contain a situation that is deteriorating day by day. day.
The therapeutic tools for protecting the most fragile have also been significantly reduced.
The ineffectiveness of monoclonal antibodies against the BQ1.1 subvariant, now the majority in France, poses unprecedented risks to the 300,000 severely immunocompromised patients, who have already paid a very heavy price for Covid, now deprived of prophylactic treatments.
The antivirals available today to prevent severe forms of Covid in frail people act as a cure, but have the major drawback of being contraindicated in the event of severe renal and hepatic insufficiency and of exposing patients to risks of drug interactions.
They remain grossly under-prescribed to eligible individuals who, as a result, are at increased risk of hospitalization, resuscitation and death.
A situation that makes people fear the worst for the fragile… But also for the hospital!
This context poses an immense risk to the most fragile, infants, seniors, immunocompromised.
But it also exposes our hospital, which is already in a highly critical situation, as well as all the patients who are or will be treated there, for whatever reason, to possible submersion in the next few weeks.
Such a situation would be tragic and must absolutely be prevented.
All the means that can contribute to this must be used simultaneously.
Wearing a mask is one of them.
For the moment, everyone decides whether or not to wear the mask, even if the Prime Minister has solemnly called for it to be worn “as soon as we are with fragile people or on public transport”.
Interviewed on December 3 by Le Journal du Dimanche, Professor Brigitte Autran, President of the Committee for Monitoring and Anticipating Health Risks (COVARS), pleads for “strengthening the wearing of masks, as much as possible in closed places where there is significant promiscuity”, without however recommending making its wearing compulsory, considering that it is up to the government to decide.
But these various calls have a very limited effectiveness: it is clear that wearing a mask remains a minority, in transport, in community pharmacies, or even in crowded stores in December, in generally ventilated conditions. insufficient.
This situation is no longer tenable.
Faced with its seriousness and its challenges, our associations are calling for the wearing of a mask to become compulsory again in areas of great promiscuity.
The mask is sometimes painful to wear and certainly it fogs up the glasses.
But today, this tool, whose usefulness has been demonstrated, should help to reduce the pressure on health establishments and the professionals who work there.
It must also contribute to the solidarity protection of the most vulnerable, by allowing them to escape the risks of contracting the virus, and sometimes of dying from it.
Let's protect hospital.
Let's protect the patients.
Protect caregivers.
Protect the most vulnerable among us.
Let's protect each other.
Signatories:
ADMD, AFH, Helping to Help, Heart Alliance, ANDAR, ELLyE, Cairo Federation, FFAAIR, Les Séropotes, Network Patients, Renaloo, RoseUp.