be the complexity of the virus, its aggressiveness, dare I say, his inventiveness, and the humility that we must always have”, he said during a crisis meeting. At a press conference on Thursday, 7 January, the minister of Health Olivier Veran has assured that “all the labs” were “mobilized to track down the variant. “We expect to identify more”, has already warned the minister that promises that “all the measures that will be necessary” will be taken “if these variants were to be distributed on the national territory”. On BFMTV a few hours later, Olivier Véran had explained that the services have dealt with this variant almost like a different virus” that ‘gives the same symptoms, do not give more often of serious cases as the virus it is, but it is more contagious.” Finding the new strain of “extremely fast”, he showed concern and determination : “I will not hide my concern over the varying English,” he confessed, before concluding : “We do not want this virus begins to spread on the territory”.
“we do everything We can to prevent the variant to return and spread on the territory”, has been further underlined by Olivier Véran, on Europe 1, on January 10. Evoking the situations of Scotland and of England, reconfinés, the minister said that he did not want “us to live this in France”. “We must do everything to avoid it progresses rapidly and becomes the dominant strain,” has again hammered Olivier Véran during the press conference of 14 January. A concern and a goal repeated in his interview of 21 January on TF1. For the minister of Health, the variant of English is “almost the same virus, except that it is more contagious. It is a race against the clock to prevent it from spreading”.
Olivier Véran has more or less reiterated these remarks on the Sunday the 24th of January in Le Parisien leaving, very clearly, the option of a reconfinement open. For his part, the chairman of the scientific Council Jean-François Delfraissy said the same day on BFMTV that the variant of the Covid could result in “the equivalent of a second pandemic”. A formula repeated almost word for word by the minister of Health on 28 January, who said fear of “an epidemic within the epidemic,” which will hit “very fast and very strong,” without new measures.
A variant dominant in France in march 2021 ?
in mid-January, public Health in France was estimated that the varying british Covid accounted for 1% to 2% of positive tests in France. According to the minister of Health Olivier Véran, who was speaking during the grand press conference of the government on the same day, “200 to 300 people” were so contaminated every day by this strain of the virus in the country. A range of new referred to by the minister during the 20h of TF1 on 21 January. During a press conference a week later, on Thursday, January 28, Olivier Veran has increased these estimates. Based on the results of the studies of Inserm, of the studies, “Flash”, in which a new wave was coming to an end at the time of his speech, of tests, Thermo-Fisher based on the suspicions of variants or tests PCR “multiplex”, the minister of Health has estimated that the variant of the Covid touched now 2000 people per day.
according To several scientists, the share of the variant of the Covid in the set of all positive tests performed in France every day, may soon cross the 50%. A study by the national Institute of health and medical research (Inserm), published on the website of his laboratory EPIcx lab (Epidemics in complex environments) on 19 January, has modeled the evolution of the Covid in France, integrating the impact of the varying british (VOC 202012/01). The Inserm researchers believe that the latter could become dominant between the end of February and mid-march, and cause a new peak of hospitalizations in the country. Being questioned by The World on the 16th of January, the epidemiologist Vittoria Colizza, a signatory of the study, had previously warned about worsening next to the situation of the epidemic. “The situation will quickly become critical. Because this variant is most contagious, it could become dominant in the month of march,” warned the director of research at the Inserm.
On the basis of its current presence (about 1% of cases) and according to several scenarios (transmission 40% or 70% higher than the dominant strain), the number of cases of the variant british would 3752 or 26 394 per day on 1 march, for its part, estimated a team from the Pasteur Institute, led by Simon Cauchemez, an epidemiologist and member of the scientific council. These figures were released by the AFP on 19 January. According to professor Anne-Geneviève Marcelin, virologist at the Pitié-Salpêtrière hospital Marcelin, a range of 2 to 12% could be achieved in the Ile-de-France at the beginning of February, and then 12 to 64% at the beginning of march.
Arnaud Fontanet, an epidemiologist and member of the scientific Council, has predicted a “surge” of epidemic likely in march in The Parisian mid-January. Professor Yazdan Yazdanpanah, chief of infectious diseases at the hospital Bichat (AP-HP), estimated at the same time as the varying british could become predominant “in march-April” on BFMTV.
But the circulation of this new strain of the Covid in France will be in any case difficult to assess with precision. Samuel Alizon, a researcher at the CNRS and specialist of the modeling of infectious diseases has indicated the end of 2020 in a Release that the F
