The eighth wave is slowly receding in France. However, while all the studies do not yet claim its end, some specialists are already worried about the emergence of a ninth wave. Indeed, as Le Point reports, epidemiologist and professor of public health at the University of Geneva Antoine Flahault published a series of tweets to warn against an epidemic rebound.

“Western Europe is experiencing the very likely start of a new (ninth) pandemic wave of Covid-19,” he wrote on the social network. According to figures from Public Health France, with 33,331 new cases confirmed on November 18, 2022, an increase of 23.1% was observed throughout the territory in 7 days.

“In France, contaminations and hospitalizations are increasing almost simultaneously, deaths are no longer falling and should increase again soon, with already more than 33,000 Covid-19 deaths since the start of 2022,” continued the expert. According to him, this ninth wave to come would be “driven by the BQ11 sub-variant of Omicron”.

The epidemiologist also gave some recommendations in the face of concern for the elderly and immunocompromised. According to him, this reason would “fully justify the introduction of the wearing of a mask compulsory for all, in closed places and public transport, because it has been shown that this reduces the risk”.

Despite this, in several departments, this ninth wave does not yet seem to be pointing the tip of its nose since the number of positive cases has been falling for a week. Here are the departments where the virus seems to be losing ground according to figures from Public Health France shared by CovidTracker.