At a time when the vaccination campaign is finally accelerating and that we think we can glimpse the end of the tunnel – it was, parodying Verlaine, “of a monotonous length” – the appearance on French soil of new variants of Covid-19 mortgages the return to a normal life. It’s all Camus concentrated in a virus, both “La Peste” and “L’Etranger”. After the English, which infectious disease specialists doubt that it is more dangerous than the initial strain, here are the more exotic South African and Brazilian. If they do not give the fever of Saturday evening to a tune of samba or vuvuzela, these two variants, supposedly more contagious, panic the health authorities. The Minister of Health, Olivier Véran, also believes that these new forms of virus, more aggressive, can cause the reinfection of patients who were believed to be immune. An endless nightmare …
In the south of Haute-Garonne, in the Pique valley where you are more likely to come across a bear than a mutant virus, two cases of South African variants were however detected. Panic on board: it was necessary to organize a massive screening campaign and to swab the six thousand inhabitants of the twenty-three municipalities of the valley. The emphasis on health security in this small corner of Occitania, such as the Moselle, which is the subject of special government attention, could herald a change in the strategy to fight the epidemic.
The emergence of variants of the coronavirus in certain regions revives the hypothesis of localized restrictive measures. Olivier Véran has already made it known that he was “ready to act if necessary” and targeted restrictions (à la carte confinement being excluded for the moment) could become the new doctrine in order to avoid the scarecrow of a re-containment national. In short, a France with a variant geometry.
However, the spread of variants should not cause us to deviate from our vaccine strategy. Studies have certainly concluded that the vaccines currently on the market – in particular that of AstraZeneca, which boosted the vaccination campaign – were less effective against mutants. Less protective but not ineffective either. It is therefore a matter of keeping a cool head at the same time as the vaccination course. Its first effects are already being felt with the onset of a slow decline in the epidemic and the constitution, day after day, of a shield for the most vulnerable. Unfortunately, too many deaths are still recorded, in nursing homes in particular where the appearance of the virus, varying or not, still causes real massacres.
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