Zoé Pallier and Gauthier Delomez
, modified at
2:09 p.m., December 30, 2021
A way to reassure the population, but ineffective in the face of the spread of the Omicron variant of Covid-19. In the show Europe Midi, the emergency doctor Gérald Kierzek pointed out the uselessness of the obligation to wear the mask outside, as the measure was decided in certain large cities recently, in Paris, Lyon or Villeurbanne. “It does not make sense,” he said at the microphone of Thierry Dagiral.
Easier transmission in confined spaces
In Paris, wearing a mask outdoors will indeed be mandatory again from Friday. A measure of which some Parisians do not see the point. “We had a whole vaccination campaign. We proved by A + B that the mask was not used for much outside, and now we have to postpone it. It’s a bit absurd,” castigates a Parisian interviewed at the microphone of Europe 1.
The emergency physician at the Hôtel-Dieu hospital, near Notre-Dame-de-Paris, explained in Europe Midi that “the coronavirus is transmitted like all respiratory viruses indoors, in a closed atmosphere where one cannot ventilate, nor aerate”. Gérald Kierzek underlined the effectiveness of the mask indoors, which “contains a mixing of the population”, but relied on an image to demonstrate that wearing it outdoors is unnecessary. “When you smoke a cigarette outside, the cloud of smoke will dissipate into the air. The coronavirus cloud is exactly the same.
The measure “will not change the game” against Omicron
The emergency doctor at the Hôtel-Dieu hospital in Paris also affirmed that in the open air, “the contact time, that is to say the duration of exposure to the coronavirus, is extremely short, and therefore it cannot be can not contaminate “, taking the example of two people who pass each other in the street.
For Gérald Kierzek, this will not limit the strong spread of the virus observed in recent days. “It is not (this measure) that will change the game on contamination at Omicron in particular,” he added. Faced with the very contagious variant of Covid-19, the emergency doctor finally called for serenity.
“There is no reason to panic, as foreign examples show us (…). (Omicron) is like a cold or something benign”, he assured, insisting on the fact that there are very few really sick Covid patients in hospitals.