Covid-19: mask, vaccine … The latest announcements from Covars

Tick-tock, tick-tock…Are we shortly for new restrictions? Spring and then summer have somewhat made us forget the Covid-19 and the end of wearing a mask has relegated it to the rank of bad memory. However, the virus which has been circulating for two and a half years in France does not seem to have finished with us, because contaminations are on the rise again.

According to the latest data from Public Health France, the incidence rate is now 459 in France, an increase of 34% compared to the previous week. The effective R is still above 1, a sign that the virus is transmitted from person to person and the test positivity rate is approaching 25%, with an increase of 18% over the last seven days. The indicators are also rising in hospitals, where emergency room visits are up 8% over one week and where hospitalizations have jumped by 40%. 370 patients have been admitted to critical care over the past 7 days and 187 additional deaths have been recorded.

Should we be worried about this eighth wave in France? After 30 months of pandemic, this umpteenth return of the virus is not managed in the same way as the first time, but it still raises some questions. Among them, the need for a new dose of vaccine, which would be the fourth for those who have not done their second booster. For the time being, there is no question of vaccinating the entire population again, but of targeting the elderly, the most fragile, those at risk but also all those who wish to do so.

Will this be enough? It’s not certain. The specter of a return of certain restrictions also hovers over France for the fall and winter. On this subject, the president of Covars – the body which replaces the Scientific Council – made new announcements on Tuesday morning. Find out which ones in the slideshow below.