Researchers have evaluated the “zero Covid” policy deployed in Saint-Pierre and Miquelon.
- Saint-Pierre and Miquelon is a French archipelago in North America.
- From March 2020, the territory’s health authorities adopted a “zero-Covid” strategy in order to protect the population and health structures.
- Researchers have evaluated this strategy.
Three years after the start of the global Covid-19 epidemic, researchers from Santé Publique France assessed the policy “zero Covid” deployed in Saint-Pierre and Miquelon.
“Zero Covid” strategy: the case of Saint Pierre and Miquelon
Saint-Pierre and Miquelon is a French archipelago in North America which had 5,974 inhabitants in 2019. As of March 2020, the territory’s health authorities adopted a strategy “zero-Covid” in order to protect the population and health structures.
“This research describes the epidemic dynamics of Covid-19 in Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon with regard to the evolution of the strategies put in place from March 2020 to May 2022”, explain the authors of the report. “All health measures were collected from the prefecture. Epidemiological surveillance and vaccination data come from networks set up by the Territorial Health Administration and summaries of emergency visits,” they add.
After a strict 6-week confinement, measures to isolate cases or contacts and a significant reduction in air traffic were introduced. Vaccination was offered to the entire population in March 2021 and was quickly accepted in all age groups.
Saint-Pierre and Miquelon: “the zero-Covid strategy made it possible to delay the entry of the virus”
No community spread of the virus was observed before November 2021, then three epidemic waves followed one another, reaching an incidence rate of 9,687 cases per 100,000 inhabitants at the highest. Only a single death linked to Covid-19 has been recorded.
The entry of the virus into the territory was concomitant with the appearance of new variants and the relaxation of health measures.
“The zero-Covid strategy applied to Saint-Pierre and Miquelon made it possible to delay the entry of the virus into the territory to prepare health infrastructure and to allow as many people as possible to be vaccinated,” summarizes Public Health France. “This strategy contributed to the low health impact that the virus may have had, but at the cost of strong isolation of the territory and populations for a year and a half,” concludes the health agency.
Covid-19 is an infectious disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Most people infected with the virus experience mild to moderate respiratory illness and recover without needing special treatment.
