2023-08-07 16:30:28
The Bayonne festivities, last July, were at the origin of a slight increase in positive cases of the virus in France this summer.
A disease that has not finished talking regarding it. Since the end of the Bayonne Festival on July 30, discussions on the Covid-19 seem to have started once more. The festivities, which lasted five days and which brought together nearly 1.3 million people in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques, were at the origin of a slight resurgence of the virus, very localized. Should we therefore fear a resurgence?
Normal variations
The day following the popular holiday in the Basque Country, hundreds of people used Covid tests and some pharmacies claimed to have recorded a positivity rate of 70% to 90%, report our colleagues from South West . Public Health France confirmed this increase in circulation of the virus in the middle of summer, while stressing that it was only slight: the regional unit in New Aquitaine mentioned 90 new cases detected in the department for the week of holidays.
For the professor of public health at the Lille University Hospital Philippe Ayoumel, there is therefore no need to worry. This peak indeed belongs to the usual variations of a virus. “It is normal for a virus to circulate, proportional to the rates of transmission and promiscuity, but that does not make it a national epidemic.“, explains the specialist. “The Covid continues to exist“he continues, but now it’s a”endemic disease“. In other words, the virusis present, in small doses and is experiencing epidemic micropeaks, as in the case of Bayonne where we know the reasons for this upsurge“. These variations are not only linked to events, insists Alice Desbiolles, public health doctor and epidemiologist. Like other influenza variants, Covid occurs every year with “seasonal upsurges“, she explains.
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“Fuzzy” indicators
It is also difficult to determine if this increase is really significant on a national scale today. For good reason, since July 1, most indicators on the spread of the virus are inaccessible. A figure was however published in the national information bulletin Oscour of August 1, 2023 by Public Health France: for the week of July 24 to 30, visits to the emergency room for suspected Covid-19 infection increased by 26% , says the report. This increase, which represents only 149 additional passages, remains however very low compared to previous years.
These data are also insufficient. “Positive tests in a localized sector or the number of emergency visits for suspicion of Covid are rather vague indicators“, underlines from the outset the epidemiologist Alice Desbiolles. What matters, according to the specialist, is “know if it is a variant and if it will generate serious forms“. Currently, “it is still early to say whether an aggressive variant will return nationwide“, she decides.
A reassuring herd immunity
Another reassuring factor is that of herd immunity. “Spikes are contained by significant herd immunity“, explains Professor Philippe Ayoumel. “The population has become immunized, it is the natural evolution of an infectious disease“. This last “has been widely developed, whether natural, vaccine or hybrid», Details Alice Desbiolles. “We are in a more reassuring context, at the medical and epidemiological level compared to potential upsurges of variants“, she continues.
However, “of course you have to watch all the signals and stay vigilant“, she warns. “The question that will have to be asked is what we will do when the immunity rate drops and the (weather) conditions are a little wetter and more favorable to the virus, probably at the start of the school year or in winter.“, anticipates Professor Philippe Ayoumel. By emphasizing that Covid-19 has become a “notifiable disease», which helps in the feedback of information. “We did not release the surveillance».
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