Guest of BFMTV on Monday, May 17, the Minister of Health Olivier Véran promised that wearing a mask outdoors would "
soon
" be no longer mandatory in France - while being careful not to specify the date he is considering for lifting this ban , which concerns most French cities but also many places to walk, as
Le Figaro
shows, for example, in this infographic listing all the beaches where it is mandatory to keep your mask.
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Read also: Will you be able to remove your mask when you are vaccinated?
In detail, the Minister nonetheless distinguished the case of beaches from that of city centers: “
When you are outside, 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 detailed, adding that on the other hand"
if you are alone or some in a very large space, very ventilated like a beach, a mountain, a forest, a park, a deserted street, there we must be able to be quickly brought to reconsider the obligation of the wearing of the mask in this situation
”.
Read also: Are there arguments in favor of wearing a mask outdoors?
"
Quickly
So, but not right away. Why that ? In fact, there are still a few scientific voices that timidly support the obligation to wear the mask outdoors, but they are fewer and fewer and do not always invoke the arguments that we believe. A study by Chinese scientists has, for example, established that by wearing a mask all the time (and therefore also outdoors), we are less likely than usual to touch our face with our hands - which can be a source of contamination. when these have been infected by our environment and we wear them in our nose or mouth. Moreover, in France, many infectious disease specialists have recommended wearing a mask outdoors as a way to get used to the mask and therefore to think about it systematically when thewe find ourselves indoors or in close proximity to other people. With our colleagues from
Liberation
, the virologist Bruno Lina believes that this measure allows "to
adopt
" a "
reflex
" and will encourage people to keep their mask more in an enclosed environment.
Very little contamination in the open air
Other doctors, on the other hand, have repeatedly said since the start of the pandemic that the outdoor mask is a useless gadget, imposed by a precautionary principle taken to the extreme. In our columns, Dr Guillaume Barucq has - among others - been their spokesperson, writing in a column that "
wearing a mask outdoors has become a more political measure than a health measure, a conspicuous measure which gives a false impression. safety
”and further specifying that inhaling the fresh air, sea air in particular, is, on the contrary, more than recommended.
The main argument supporting the uselessness of wearing a mask outdoors remains above all the very low number of contaminations recorded outdoors. As we explained in particular in March (when the walks of Parisians along the banks of the Seine sparked controversy), no outdoor cluster has been explicitly noted by Public Health France since October 2020. A study by Pr Arnaud Fontanet also revealed last December that these contaminations certainly represented much less than 2% of all contaminations. Above all, this figure in reality does not mean much, since outdoor situations are very varied and only prolonged promiscuity with other people (in a crowd, a queue ...) or sharing 'a meal, for example,carry proven risks of contamination.
However, as the
New York Times
explains in particular
, the American CDC (Centers for Disease Control, the equivalent of our Regional Health Agencies) continue to impose the wearing of masks outdoors on people not yet vaccinated, on the basis of of a fallacious figure. There would be, according to Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC, "
a little less than 10% of transmissions of the virus outdoors.
», According to an official communication of April 27, relayed on the site of the White House. However, this figure does not hold water. The American journalist David Leonhardt has indeed sought the studies at the origin of this calculation, the result of which is contradicted by all the epidemiologists he interviewed. The reality would be a hundred times lower: around 0.1% only of contamination outdoors, according to him. Two studies in particular seem to count a surprisingly large number of outdoor contaminations: one from the Medical Research Council published in June, the other from the University of San Francisco published in February. What these two studies have in common: all the outdoor clusters identified were located ... in Singapore. Would the air of this country be more foul there thanelsewhere ? Undoubtedly not: quite simply, the nomenclature used to count the clusters there considers all the sites as places of outside. The cases listed are therefore automatically counted as outdoor contaminations ... which is very probably not the case for most of them.
Most contaminations take place outside the home, but it cannot be deduced that they take place in the open air.
Citing other studies this time, the journalist adds that many academics have a very broad view of "
outdoor places
", and sometimes include even places of work, leisure, commerce, etc.
In short, all places located outside ... the home, but not necessarily in the open air.
The bias is therefore this: we are certainly right to consider that most contaminations take place outside the home, but we cannot deduce from this that they take place in the open air, or at least this indicator does not. not enough to justify specifically requiring the wearing of a mask in the open air.
Wearing a mask outdoors has no impact on the epidemic
Also a leading figure in the opponents of the mask in the open air, Dr. Martin Blachier believes for his part that it is not the epidemiological studies that are the most relevant on the usefulness of wearing the mask outdoors, because they are still too imprecise. Admittedly, when we examine in detail the places of contamination, we find a very low number of contaminations outside. But it is the physical knowledge of the modes of transmission of the virus which reveals it best, he explains: "
The examination of the transmission by aerosols (these small invisible particles suspended in the air) shows that as soon as when you are a little far away and outdoors, the risk of contamination becomes minimal,
”he explains to
Le Figaro
. And to add: "
Imposing the wearing of a mask outdoors is a misnomer in terms of health, not only because it is useless but above all because it can risk dissuading us from going out when, on the contrary, it is the best thing to do: go to the big picture air and breathe!
"
Finally, proof, if one was needed, that the obligation to wear a mask outdoors has no real epidemiological impact: analysts Serge Blondel and Samra Bouazza compared last December in
Le Figaro
the evolution of the epidemic in different territories, some concerned by the obligation to wear a mask in the open air, others not: not only do the territories not experience major differences in the spread of the virus but, moreover, they are rather those where the mask was not mandatory which experienced more rapid epidemic progression.
As a result of this increasingly generalized questioning of the relevance of this measure, local authorities are already starting to lift it here and there in France, as in the Creuse from Thursday for example, as comes from the announce this Tuesday the prefect Virginie Darpheuille on France Bleu.