Return of the mandatory mask: the latest announcements from François Braun

We are currently in the middle of the ninth wave of Covid-19, according to the many experts who started to sound the alarm bells this week. On Tuesday, November 29, Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne spoke on this subject at the lectern of the National Assembly. At the time of his speech, the numbers were already reaching worrying levels. 40,000 cases per day on average, for a 10% increase in the hospitalization rate in one week!

For the transition to critical hospital care, the increase even amounts to 22%. The situation is all the more worrying as these figures are very likely understated in relation to the reality of the facts. Indeed, several factors blur the statistics: the lab staff strike, but also the fact that fewer and fewer people are getting tested. And, if they do, it will very often be through a self-test, which is therefore by definition not listed and which is not taken into account in the statistics.

This Sunday, December 4, François Braun, the Minister of Health, was invited on the set of BFMTV. This speech is a continuation of that of Elisabeth Borne mentioned above. It also joins the recommendations made by Brigitte Autran, president of Covars, on Télématin on Monday November 28. One of the highlights of these three speeches: the importance of wearing a mask. François Braun therefore “very strongly” advised him, as reported by our colleagues from Sud-Ouest.

He did not say he was in favor of the mandatory mask immediately, but said that “his arm will not shake” if an obligation were to be justified. The criteria on which the government will rely will be “the saturation of hospitals or the evolution of the flu epidemic”. The Minister of Health makes particular reference to the “triple epidemic”. This term refers to the current accumulation of the ninth wave of Covid with the epidemic of influenza and bronchiolitis, which raise fears of too much pressure on the public hospital.

You can therefore find below the 21 departments in which the mask could become compulsory again first, depending on the rate of passage to the emergency room linked to the flu.