Three years after the first positive cases identified in France, the government is ending the exceptional measures. With 46.5 contaminations per 100,000 inhabitants in one week, the incidence rate has never been so low since October… 2021!
Since the spring of 2022, France has had fewer and fewer serious cases and the trend is confirmed as of this month of February since in France, there are now 4,509 positive cases per day and 30 admissions to critical care according to Covid Tracker .
Can we therefore hope to put an end to this virus definitively and classify it at the same level as a good seasonal cold? What are the reassuring elements?
With the exception of China, which has suffered a surge in cases since the sudden lifting of restrictions after a wind of revolt in the country which still practiced the Zero Covid policy, vaccination coupled with contaminations have contributed to a balance in collective immunity in the world. entire. According to the WHO, Sars-CoV-2 will not disappear, but may, like other respiratory viruses, no longer circulate as frequently as has been known.
However, the WHO continues to monitor several African countries where barely 25% of Africans benefit from a complete vaccination schedule, compared to nearly 70% in the rest of the world.
According to Capital, the experts do not see the emergence of a variant that would completely change the situation soon. Today, the Covid-19 viruses circulating are all descendants of Omicron. These viruses hunt each other and are not associated with a clear epidemic recovery.
Like the seasonal flu, the Covid could require annual vaccination for the most fragile people. Bruno Lina, a virologist and member of the Health Risk Monitoring and Anticipation Committee, told Capital: “Either the virus behaves like the flu and the most vulnerable will have to be vaccinated once a year, or it causes two epidemics like the rhinovirus and they will have to be vaccinated twice a year.”
Discover in our slideshow the 10 French departments where the incidence rate is very low.