The latest upturn in infections is cause for concern as France on Monday lifted most Covid-19 restrictions, including the use of masks in many indoor locations, with some health workers lamenting a premature move dictated by political imperatives ahead of the country’s presidential election.
Crowded out by the war in Ukraine and France’s looming presidential contest, Covid-19 has all but vanished from the French news in recent weeks. And yet the pandemic that brought the world to a standstill in 2020 is far from over.
In fact, after weeks of steady decline, Covid infections are creeping up again, according to the public health body, Santé publique France. The number of new infections topped 73,000 on Friday, up from 60,000 a week before. The more accurate 7-day average pointed to almost 70,000 new cases per day – a 20% increase week-on-week.
The national average conceals significant regional disparities, says Guillaume Rozier, founder of the government-sponsored website CovidTracker, establishing a link between the uptick in cases and French regions’ staggered return to school after the winter holidays.
“The rise in cases is most apparent in northern France and along the Mediterranean coast, roughly corresponding to the areas where children returned to school earliest (on February 21),” he explained.
The schools’ rentrée is known to drive infections as pupils, teachers and parents mingle after the Winter break. Health experts have also flagged a slackening of social distancing measures as people lower their guard.
Another potential infection driver is the spread of Omicron’s BA.2 subvariant, which early studies suggest could be up to 30% more infectious than the strain that was prevalent so far.
Off with their masks
France is not alone in registering an uptick in cases, with Germany, Britain and the Netherlands reporting similar trends. However, like its European peers, the French government is determined to stick to its timetable to lift restrictions.
Rules requiring people to show a Covid-19 vaccine passport to access venues will be lifted on Monday, March 14, just under a month before the country’s presidential election. So will the requirement to wear face masks indoors.
Henceforth, the face coverings that have become a symbol of the pandemic will be required only on public transport, in hospitals and in care homes for the elderly – marking a major policy shift that some experts and health workers have described as premature.
“France’s health minister had said the move would be conditional on a number of health indicators. But it seems that sticking to the timetable is now the priority,” said the Swiss-based epidemiologist Antoine Flahaut, referring to Health Minister Olivier Véran’s claim that restrictions would only be lifted if the incidence rate – the number of new cases per 100,000 people – stayed below 500 (it is now at 546).
The government is also short of its target of bringing the number of patients in ICU below 1,500. The number has only recently slipped below the 2,000-mark, its lowest level since early December.
Politics trumping health concerns
According to Jérôme Marty, who heads the doctors’ union UFML, the decision to lift restrictions is both untimely and misguided, driven by political imperatives.
“It wouldn’t have bothered me if infections were falling, but clearly it’s not the case. Moreover, we’re dropping face masks without implementing any parallel measures to ventilate closed spaces and prevent viral concentrations,” he told FRANCE 24. “With the presidential campaign in full swing, the motive is clearly political, not sanitary.”
>> Read more: In vaccine-sceptic France, candidates walk tightrope on Covid measures
The fear is that hospitalisations could also start edging up again, as is already the case in the UK, though France’s high vaccination rate and the arrival of spring should help ease the pressure on hospitals.
“The public can count on better vaccine protection and greater knowledge of the virus than in the past,” said Marty. “The problem is that we still have five million people who are not vaccinated and some 300,000 who are immunocompromised.”
Overcoming vaccine scepticism in the Caribbean
Health workers are particularly concerned about the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, where the number of new cases has once again crossed the alert threshold.
So far, only 45% of Guadeloupeans have received a first vaccine jab. Less than a quarter of the population has completed its vaccination with three doses. Local officials are hoping to overcome widespread vaccine scepticism with the introduction of the Novavax jab, a more traditional vaccine compared with the messenger RNA types used so far.
Announcing the territory’s 1,000th hospital death from Covid-19 in late February, local health workers lamented a “carnage without precedent since Guadeloupe’s cholera epidemic of 1865-6”.
As the head of the World Health Organisation, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, warned on Wednesday, “this pandemic is far from over”.
This article has been adapted from the original in French.
