Under the radar, the “three epidemics” continue to put pressure on the French health system. The major health measures against Covid-19 – whose decline has been confirmed – ended on Wednesday, worrying some experts. From Wednesday, it will no longer be necessary to systematically isolate positive cases and test their contacts two days later. Follow-up of contacts through the ‘Covid contact’ service administered by Health Insurance will also cease.
Flu infections, on the other hand, started to pick up last week after falling for four straight weeks. Overall, 10 of the 13 regions remain endemic, but “indicators in cities and hospitals remain at a low level of intensity,” France’s Public Health Ministry said on Wednesday. The last epidemic of bronchiolitis has been trending downward since late December and has continued to decline in most regions over the past 7 days.
still unknown casualties
Benjamin Davido, an infectious disease specialist at the Raymond-Poincaré hospital, was “surprised” that there was no epidemic in January, explaining that the decline in Covid-19 infections was linked to immunity acquired by a large part of the population . “The question now is whether this immunity can withstand new variants that may arise,” the doctor said.
Still, the health system is scarred. After months of the pandemic and this triple pandemic, “he is enduring hardships that seem increasingly unbearable”, Prof Zureik reckons, counting on the “declining quality of care” to continue inevitably. The human toll of this triple epidemic is not even known yet.