As autumn approaches, the Covid-19 is also preparing to make its comeback. With the return of the cold and the imminence of new variants, the specialists leave little room for doubt: the epidemic risks taking over in the months to come.

And for good reason: there have rarely been so few health restrictions since the start of the crisis in December 2019. No specific protocol in schools, end of exceptional measures (confinement, curfew, travel limits, etc.). .)…

In the 20-minute columns, virologist Bruno Lina sounds the alarm: “The start of the school year is a special time that must be watched. In terms of the calendar, based on the experience of the two previous autumns, this period , which corresponds to the resumption of school and work, a mixing of the population, a cooling of temperatures and a drop in outdoor activities, forms the cocktail for a strong epidemic recovery.

Among the different scenarios for this fall, the one that worries the most is the hypothesis of a new highly contagious variant with “significant immune escape”, fears the director of the National Influenza Reference Center for the south of France.

If none has yet been detected significantly on a planetary scale, we must however remain vigilant.

In some departments, contamination is already rising. Find out which ones in our slideshow below. The figures provided are based on Covid Tracker data as of August 29, 2022, and correspond to the incidence rate, i.e. the number of people infected per 100,000 inhabitants.