Covid-19: "Several successive waves until spring 2021", according to the Scientific Council

This is “the” question everyone is asking: when will the coronavirus epidemic finally (finally) calm down? In a report delivered this Friday, October 30, 2020 (the first day of the second confinement, therefore), the Institut Pasteur tried an exercise to assess the evolution of this Covid-19 epidemic which has been going on for almost a year. year…

Researchers at the Institut Pasteur have bet on a reconfinement that would last until December 15 to make their projections.

Several scenarios are considered : the darkest, which corresponds to an ineffective reconfinement (with insufficient respect for barrier gestures) estimates that 9,000 French people will be in intensive care in mid-November with an R0 of 1.2 – which means that a person affected by Covid-19 would be able to contaminate 1.2 people on average. The “optimistic” scenario estimates that in mid-November, 6,000 patients will be in intensive care in French hospitals, with an R0 of 0.7.

The researchers therefore opted for a median hypothesis, with an R0 of 0.9. “In all assumptions, the peak of hospital admissions will be reached during the second week of November“says Arnaud Fontanet, epidemiologist at the Institut Pasteur, interviewed by our colleagues from Sunday newspaper.

Several waves until spring 2021 according to the Scientific Council

In its last opinion of October 28 (distributed on November 1), the Scientific Council considers that it is very difficult to predict how long the 2nd wave will last. Indeed, he continues, “it depends on the virus itself, its climatic environment, the measures that will be taken to limit the circulation of the virus, their acceptance and therefore their impact”.

Nevertheless, to go from 50,000 new weekly cases reached in recent days to a “controlled” level, namely between 5,000 and 8,000 new contaminations per day, it does not count on a 2nd wave exit before “the end of the year or the beginning of the year 2021Only then can the “test-trace-isolate” screening strategy be carried out with a greater chance of success, further advances the Scientific Council.

He underlines that human resources must be reinforced during this confinement to be more effective in terms of screening. As well as the deployment of the Tous Anti-Covid application. Doctors and health professionals should also be more involved so that the French can also benefit from antigenic tests outside laboratories.

Despite this, the Scientific Council remains cautious: “it is likely that these measures, even optimized, will not be enough to avoid other waves, after the second. We can thus have several successive waves during the end of winter/spring 2021, depending on different elements: climatic state, level and operational effectiveness of the Test, Trace, Isolate strategy.

So to keep the virus at a rate of less than 5,000 contaminations per day, the Scientific Council evokes a viral circulation suppression strategy“as several Asian countries, Denmark, Finland and Germany have done. Stating that overall immunity is still insufficient and that in addition we do not know exactly the duration of protective immunity, “ 6 months?” asks the Scientific Council, it proposes this strategy which would involve “strong and early measures with each epidemic resumption”. These allow “to maintain economic activity pending the arrival of a treatment and especially a vaccine hoped for in the second half of 2021”.

According to the Minister of Health, “Christmas will not be normal this year”

How to achieve the “optimistic” scenario of the Institut Pasteur? “The more we respect confinement, the shorter it will be, that’s the rule” hammers the Minister of Health, Olivier Véran. On the other hand, if the containment is not well respected, it will be necessary to take additional measures.“, that is to say a longer and stricter confinement.

But will the second wave of the epidemic be the last? Not so sure, according to the Minister of Health: “there will likely be successive waves. (…) We will have to maintain a sufficient level of protection for the population to avoid a third wave while waiting for the vaccine“.

Can we celebrate Christmas with the family this year? “We seek to create the conditions to experience a Christmas as less restrictive as possible. Alas, like elsewhere in the world, it will not be a normal party. (…) But our goal is for the epidemic pressure to fall so that we can do the shopping on time, prepare with joy, so that the conditions are created for families to find each other again.“.

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