Nearly 300,000 new cases of Covid-19 have been recorded in France over the past 24 hours, the Minister of Health, Olivier Véran announced on Tuesday, in a context still marked by the outbreak of the Omicron variant.
“Today, Public Health France risks announcing close to 300,000 contaminations over 24 hours”, declared Mr. Véran to the National Assembly.
Even if the minister did not give the precise figure, it will undoubtedly be a record of daily contaminations. The most recent dates back to the end of December, with just over 230,000 new cases in one day.
These figures testify to the magnitude of the current wave of the epidemic. This has been going on since the fall and was relaunched at the end of 2021 with the arrival of the Omicron variant, considerably more contagious than its predecessors even if its severity seems limited.
The effects on the hospital, still very uncertain in the medium term, are already being felt, with more than 2,000 admissions in one day, according to previous figures given on Monday by Public Health France.
The increase in recorded cases is partly explained by an unprecedented number of tests: eight million last week, according to Mr. Véran, who mentions both PCR tests and “antigenic” tests, less precise but faster.
However, the epidemic surge is very real as evidenced by the jump in the “positivity rate”, that is, the proportion of cases in the only people tested. It now exceeds 15%, close to its autumn 2020 records.
If the number of contaminations makes you “dizzy”, as Mr. Véran reiterated, he insisted on the protection conferred by vaccination, which remains largely effective once morest severe forms of Covid-19 if not once morest Omicron infection.
Vaccines “do not prevent contamination, but on the other hand prevent the development of the virus once it has contaminated you (…) and therefore serious forms”, he insisted.
“For a patient vaccinated with a booster in intensive care, there are 20 unvaccinated patients in our resuscitations.”, Continued the minister, defending the health pass established by the government, which must be succeeded by a vaccination pass.
The government intended to have this new pass adopted in the Assembly on Monday evening, but the vote was delayed by several opposition groups who obtained the suspension of the debates.
