There is a “high risk” that the circulation of the covid-19 virus will start to rise again “in the coming weeks in France”, warns Public Health France in its last weekly epidemiological bulletin, noting that most indicators are now falling much more slowly. “After four weeks of sharp decline in the epidemic”, the drop in the number of new cases of covid-19 recorded by RT-PCR or antigen tests marked time, to 72,121 new cases during the week of November 30, against 76,500 the previous week (-6%). The positivity rate is almost stable at 6.4%, against 6.5% the previous week.
In hospitals, the number of new admissions of patients with covid-19 also decreased slightly, from 9,247 during the week of November 23 to 8,424 for that of November 30 (-9%), as did admissions in intensive care which went from 1,346 to 1,127 (-16%). The number of deaths fell from 3,204 to 2,589 (-19%).
“Vigilance” as the holidays approach
“In week 49 (from November 30 to December 6), the evolution of the main indicators of the monitoring activity contacts stabilized, after four weeks of sharp decline, ”notes Public Health France. “After four weeks of decrease in the epidemic, the current evolution of the epidemic suggests a high risk of seeing the circulation of the SARS-CoV-2 virus again increase in the coming weeks in France and calls for the greatest vigilance , especially in view of the end of year celebrations, ”adds the health agency.
The government announced new health restrictions on Thursday evening from its original plan, including maintaining a curfew on the evening of December 31 and closing cinemas, theaters and museums for three more weeks, which were originally scheduled to reopen on December 15. The head of state had conditioned the easing of restrictions to a target of 5,000 new cases per day, while it is currently around 10,000.
An impact of the reopening of shops?
For epidemiologists at the health agency, it is too early to attribute this development to the reopening of so-called “non-essential” businesses on November 28. While being cautious, the head of the respiratory infections and vaccination unit of SpF, Daniel Levy-Bruhl, made two hypotheses: on the one hand, “a certain relaxation of individual prevention measures”, on the other hand, ” meteorological factors ”.
“There is good reason to believe that climatic factors play on the epidemic dynamic, if only through the synchronicity of epidemic resumptions in different countries which have different risk management policies when the thermometer drops or increases”, a he noted. But “we do not know very well how to distinguish between the direct effect of the weather on the virus, its virulence, its persistence in the airways and the indirect effect that cold and bad weather in general have on people. human behavior ”, in particular less ventilation of rooms.
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