Is France rushing the lockdown exit strategy? As many French people are glad to be able to return to terraces, non-necessary stores and a few cultural places starting from May 19, some specialists fear this lockdown exit. Interview on this very matter by Le Monde, epidemiologist and biostatistician Dominique Costagliola thinks this calendar is “premature”. “The probability it occurs – that is to say to prevent hospitals from being overcrowded again – is weak”, she explains in this interview issued this May 5, 2021.
“The case toll is currently decreasing, but the peak has just been passed”, the Institut Pierre-Louis for Public Health Epidemiology (Sorbonne University, Inserm) deputy director goes on before adding: “In mid-December 2020, during the previous lockdown exit, the hospitalization toll, and the number of people in ICU decreased more when everything reopened. Right now, easing is too soon”.
Furthermore, Costagliola fears a fourth wave, “all the more so as the announcement of the calendar may cause to jeopardize measure observance, including working from home”, she explains.
The epidemiologist also points out the famous incidence rate. “You will not find a single country in the world that sets their lockdown-exit threshold to 400 cases for 100,000 inhabitants”, she says.
And what about vaccination in France? Can it enable a drop in the viral circulation in the country? “At this moment, we can consider that 10% of the population is totally vaccinated, 24% have received at least one dose. And about 23% of people aged 20+ have probably been infected – according to Institut Pasteur’s estimations. It undoubtedly is still too weak to guarantee a decline in the viral circulation”, Costagliola confesses in this interview with Le Monde.
