The seasonal flu epidemic has now spread to the French metropolis where Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur (PACA) is the first region affected, health authorities announced on Wednesday, arguing on the other hand that cases of bronchiolitis could have passed a peak and now decline. “We really urge caution,” declared Isabelle Parent, epidemiologist at the Public Health France agency.
“Be careful” with vulnerable people
“We must remember that visiting elderly people during the holidays really requires being careful,” she insisted, during a press conference organized by Public Health France for the publication of weekly figures on the main acute respiratory infections. Last week, ending December 10, was notably marked by the arrival of the flu epidemic in mainland France. The PACA region is the first affected, but others are expected to follow because the majority, 8 out of 13, are already in the pre-epidemic phase. Overseas, Mayotte remains hit by the epidemic.
In this context, the health authorities were also concerned about the poor respect for barrier gestures. According to a Public Health France survey carried out in September, barely more than one in two French people consider it necessary to wear a mask if they have symptoms such as a cough or fever. “In France, we have not yet appropriated this barrier gesture which is essential” and remains associated in people’s minds with Covid-19 alone, regretted Caroline Semaille, director general of Public Health France.
10 million vaccinated against the flu
Health Minister Aurélien Rousseau called on Wednesday for “a rebound in vaccination” against the flu, to “have a good holiday” and so that “hospitals are not overwhelmed this winter”. “We need a rebound in vaccination. We have crossed 10 million for the flu, we have crossed 5 million for Covid. We are still ahead of last year’s figures on Covid, we must “We’re catching up a little on the flu. And it’s the right time to do it,” he said during a trip to a pharmacy in the 19th arrondissement of Paris with Agnès Firmin Le Bodo, Minister for Professions health.
Asked whether the French were fed up with the idea of being revaccinated, the minister judged that “there is perhaps an effect of trivialization, because we have learned to live with the flu and Covid. But we all have people around us who catch Covid, and for whom it is severe, severe.” “And I am thinking especially of those who are going to reunite with their parents, their grandparents at Christmas: we would all be more reassured if all these little people around the tree were vaccinated,” said the Minister of Health and Prevention. And to get vaccinated, “it’s super easy: all the pharmacies, nurses, doctors can do it, the doses are there,” he insisted.