DIn an interview on France Inter on December 21, Olivier Véran, government spokesperson, said: ” We have acquired a kind of culture of wearing a mask, of prevention, of public health » after almost three years of the Covid-19 pandemic. This culture would justify not making the wearing of a mask compulsory in closed public places, individual responsibility being considered sufficient for people to wear it on their own in the most risky situations.
Despite a triple epidemic of respiratory diseases and syndromes (Covid-19, bronchiolitis, flu), and repeated alerts concerning the saturation of hospitals, it is clear that this is not the case. It can be observed by taking public transport, as well as at his place of work, even in a pharmacy or in a city doctor’s office.
Contradicted by the facts
Moreover, the latest survey on the evolution of French people’s adherence to preventive measures against Covid-19 (CoviPrev), notes that in the first half of December 2022, only 28% of those questioned wore the mask in public transport or in the presence of vulnerable people, while in September many were already those who no longer wore it in closed places (from 61% to 76%, depending on the place). Olivier Véran’s statement is therefore contradicted by the facts.
More fundamentally, a culture is a group’s common way of thinking and acting. However, faced with the hospital-centered curative biomedical culture, the culture of prevention is far from certain.
The current dominant culture is biomedical, ie centered on biological mechanisms for medical purposes. The problem is not biomedicine in itself, but to have an approach which is reduced to this one to face a pandemic. Before vaccination, non-pharmaceutical and therefore non-biomedical preventive measures (confinement, curfew, wearing a mask, gauges, etc.) had to be taken to deal with the pandemic.
Since vaccination, prevention has gradually been reduced to this, despite the multiplication of waves in 2022. However, vaccination relies on the biological mechanisms of infection to cause the production of antibodies without contracting the disease or be exposed to the potentially serious risks thereof. It is therefore part of a biomedical approach, and its major interest is indisputable.
A disease without real treatment
Attention is also focused on therapy, in the face of a disease against which several putative treatments have failed (hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin, etc.). Monoclonal antibodies have shown relative effectiveness, but reduced to practically nothing after the evolution of Omicron strains giving them a stronger immune escape. Again, this is a biomedical angle, which is defeated over the mutations of the coronavirus.
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