On average, over the last 7 days, we are at more than 50,000 daily cases. Can we speak of a new wave? “Unfortunately, and it was foreseeable, we are witnessing a very significant increase in cases. The message is that this pandemic has not gone away. We lived for two months, and I sincerely think it was a mistake, as if the virus had disappeared: no, it’s still there“, underlines Professor Christian Bréchot, virologist, former director of Inserm and the Pasteur Institute, president of the Global Virus Network.
“This virus does not evolve like other viruses”
“It’s not about panicking, in the sense that in terms of hospitalizations and deaths there is not a big increase, but there is a significant risk,” he says, adding that new variants of Omicron obviously have stronger symptoms than the previous ones, although they don’t cause much more severe cases.
The recovery is global: “In Europe, there is a significant wave in Portugal, which is receding a little; in the United States too“, explains Pr. Bréchot. But how is this done despite the summer, a season less conducive to the spread of the virus? “This virus does not evolve in the same way as other viruses. And too many people rely on past experiences to explain to us that it will be seasonal. The answer is that we don’t know“, he says.
“We must wear the mask in transport”
And logically, according to him, “there will be following variants“, even if the situation is much more favorable than one or two years ago, because there has been vaccination and many people who have already encountered the virus. But that does not prevent us from advocating a second booster dose for people over 60 and frail people.
“You have to ventilate when you are inside, you have to wear the mask in transport, it was a mistake to stop it. With simple measures we will pass the course“, explains Christian Bréchot, who points out that the symptoms are stronger with these new variants and that there remains a significant risk of suffering a long Covid.
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