There are more and more concerns in Bordeaux. As the Gironde city was so far more or less spared by the Covid-19 epidemic – compared to other big cities in France – all looks were on the Bacalan district set northern Bordeaux. A cluster including about fifty people testing positive to a “very rare” variant has been detected.
After massively testing the population from May 21, the health authorities asked to “anticipate vaccinating people aged 18+ without conditions” in the Bacalan district and around, “if possible, over the weekend, or earlier next week at the latest”, ARS Nouvelle-Aquitaine medical and scientific advisor Patrick Dehail said this May 21 to AFP.
So, what do we know about this variant spotted in Bordeaux? “This is a variant already identified on a nationwide level, but very rare so far”, Dehail explained. “This is a Variant of Concern (VoC), as were the UK and Indian variants. The strain is from the UK but with a mutation. It is known, it has been seen in Île-de-France as well”, he added. “But it has very little expressed itself so far on a nationwide and international basis. It seems there has been no cluster like this in the overall population yet”, Pr. Dehail went on.
This May 22, interviewed by BFMTV, Nouvelle-Aquitaine ARS director Benoît Elleboode meant to reassure the population stating at this point there are “no longer concerns” about the clinical severity of this variant detected in Bordeaux. “It is based on the UK variant, it’s a mutation letting us think it could be more transmissible. It makes us think so because we haven’t proved it yet, but the nature of the mutation that has been detected suggests it a lot”, he explained.
“So far, there’s no severity indication, on the contrary, since everyone tested and found positive are rather young and not at the hospital, which are no severe diseases, and if they are young, it suggests elderly people who have been vaccinated have been protected against this variant”, Elleboode went on this Saturday on BMFTV.
