As vaccination goes on and the third wave is slowly declining, summer being just around the corner causes anxiety in medical experts. Will it be a “nightmare”, as Karine Lacombe fears, or will the health measures instated so far be enough to keep Covid-19 at bay?
According to Institut Pasteur epidemiologist and Scientific Council Member Arnaud Fontanet, France can still have a “quiet summer”. “If we manage to go below 5,000 cases to 200 – 100 hospitalizations per day as of June 15, we would really move to a new era of the epidemic. It would be another pattern enabling us to have a much quieter summer”, he explained this Friday May 21 on Europe 1. “While if we remain in an area of 10,000-15,000 cases per day, it could not mean what will happen over the summer because of an Indian-kind of variant arriving in France could make the situation difficult”, he added.
June 15th sounds like a decisive deadline: if the epidemic is not under control at that moment, a fourth wave could put the country and the already overcrowded hospitals on their knees.
In the meantime, Fontanet guarantees it is crucial to keep on making efforts. Systematic facemask-wearing must stay the rule, even for people vaccinated. The French must also keep on being vaccinated. “We need to reach 60% of people vaccinated, and we’ll be able to enter more comfortable places”, the expert thinks.
Once again, variants plant seeds of doubts and fear as for the evolution of the epidemic situation in France. The Indian variant – also known as a double mutant – is the currently most serious threat, according to scientists.
