Vers a new wave of the Covid-19 epidemic? The rebound in the number of contaminations observed at the beginning of March is confirmed. While a new step was taken in the lifting of health restrictions on Monday March 14 – end of wearing a mask, except in transport, and of the vaccination pass – the incidence rate increased by 25% in one week, after more than a month of uninterrupted decline. There are 65,000 cases detected per day on average as of March 12, compared to just over 50,000 at the start of the month.
It would rather be a wavelet, reassures the Minister of Health, Olivier Véran, who points to a one-time increase due to the relaxation of health measures. “What the scientific council and the models of the Institut Pasteur tell us is that indeed it will go up for ten to fifteen days, probably until the end of March, he assured France Info this Wednesday, March 16. We risk reaching 120,000 to 150,000 contaminations per day and then we expect a decrease. The government “made the right decision” by maintaining the lifting of restrictions, he insisted.
“The most fundamental thing, believes the minister, is that the hospital load […] will be contained. The indicators at the hospital are, for the moment, still falling. There were 1,783 Covid-19 patients in intensive care as of March 15, compared to more than 3,000 a month earlier. The decline is similar for conventional hospitalizations, which have shrunk by 30% in one month. It remains to be seen the impact of this rebound on the hospital, which is still out of step with the detection of positive cases. The government bases its confidence on the latest wave due to the Omicron variant: despite a tsunami of new cases – more than 300,000 per day – the influx into hospital services had remained relatively limited.
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