The symbolic bar of 100,000 daily cases detected has been crossed. Santé Publique France announced, Saturday, December 25, 2021, 104,611 positive cases detected in 24 hours, with an incidence rate of 646 per 100,000, and even exceeding 840 among 30-39 year olds.
The Covid is therefore soaring, and if the Omicron variant has not yet gained the advantage over Delta everywhere, it is a matter of days. And we will know it live. Since December 20, the progress of the variant has been monitored by a new PCR screening test, without the need to wait for sequencing results taking five to eight days.
An exceptional council of ministers
On Monday, December 27, a Health Defense Council will precede the exceptional Council of Ministers during which the bill will be presented to change the health pass into a vaccination pass. It should decide to shorten the isolation times for contact cases, and even asymptomatic positive cases. Omicron is very fast. But the vast majority of those infected have few symptoms. The Scientific Council, which is pushing for this reduction, was seized on Friday, December 24 by the government to make concrete proposals.
Will there be additional and immediate restrictions? In Haute-Savoie, where the incidence rate exceeds 900, the prefecture banned, Wednesday, December 22, “Open-air festive events”, but also alcohol consumption on public roads from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. and from 4 p.m. in ski resorts. This, until the end of the year-end vacation. A tightening of national instructions for December 31 is very likely.
Shorten the time between second and third doses
Friday 24 December, the High health authority had recommended the injection of a booster dose for fragile adolescents, but also to reduce the time between the second and third dose to three months for adults. The Medicines Agency had in fact estimated the same day that this shortened time limit (but below which we could not go down) was “Possible”. In its projections, the European Center for Disease Control estimates that this strategy would reduce the expected mortality associated with the Omicron variant by 15%.
The Ministry of Health did not follow it fully, but immediately instituted a deadline reduced to four months. The main reason is logistics. Reducing the timeframe to three months from the outset could have clogged the vaccination centers between the holidays. But also put additional pressure on pharmacists, who should have booster doses to inject at the beginning of the week, but who already have to manage the impatience of all those who will want to be tested before New Year’s Eve.
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