" There, the government will enter the hard way! "Roselyne Bachelot advanced to" Talk Le Figaro "Thursday," he has left the comfort zone! " The former Minister of Health, who lived in the heart of the H1N1 flu epidemic in 2010, salutes the management of the executive. She observes that the French strategy " so far adapted without being radical " is a strategy of barrier measures, of stressing the hospital system with recourse to city medicine.
A few hours before the intervention of the President of the Republic, the former Minister of the Fillon government draws up an inventory. " Over the past 48 hours, we have witnessed an upheaval in the deal, which is quite remarkable, " she underlines, noting on the international level a mobilization and " a change of foot " by a certain number of leaders. " We saw it with Donald Trump, after he downplayed or even ridiculed those who insisted on the gravity of the situation . She also mentions Angela Merkel " who makes very disturbing comments when talking about 70% of the population affected by the coronavirus and abandons their financial and economic strategies ".
Should we fear an Italian scenario? " I think that in any case we will enter a scenario of political controversies which will be extremely difficult for the executive to manage ," said the former minister. So far, it has noted few arbitrations, a fairly unanimous scientific community and the government spokesperson who " pushed before it the specialists ", government advisers on the matter.
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What she is now observing is " this united front which has fractured " and " two opposing clans ". On the one hand, there is the Bricaire, epidemiologist and infectiology clan, rather " optimistic ", who rightly calls for keeping, on the other, Éric Caumes, head of service at the Pitié-Salpêtrière hospital in Paris, rather " Catastrophist ". " The difficulty for the government will be to choose between these dissonant voices " foreshadows Bachelot, who testifies to the same difficulty during the flu epidemic in 2010.
The old popular adage, when there is a doubt, is that there is no doubt ... will this crisis management take on its full meaning? For Roselyne Bachelot, no hesitation: " It is the maximum protection strategy that is the only good ", a very clear-cut position that was criticized a lot during the H1N1 epidemic.
When we are faced with an unknown danger, she continues, either we decide that we do nothing, or we decide to do the maximum because " half strategies, it always fails ", she says. On economic considerations, she asserts that " the budgetary argument cannot be accepted ". And the former minister to conclude on a more positive note: " France is ready " to face up and the hospital system, even if it is going through difficulties, " shows resilience " No doubt for her, " in an epidemic, health power must be centralized (...), which is not contradictory with a decentralized system ".