LThe highly contagious Omicron variant is shaking the world. On December 29, France exceeded the milestone of 200,000 cases of Covid-19 in 24 hours, a record, announced by the Minister of Health, Olivier Véran. A “tidal wave” that worries the executive. The Institut Pasteur published new simulations on Wednesday, reports The world.
Experts from the Institut Pasteur offer a fairly optimistic first scenario. If the Omicron variant is less severe than the Delta variant, as South African and Scottish data seem to indicate, but its contagiousness is 70% greater than Delta, daily hospital admissions are expected to be 2,700. A level comparable to that of the second wave.
But if the Omicron variant would be 80% more contagious and 50% less severe than the Delta, the health situation would be much more critical in France. The 5,000 daily hospitalizations would then be reached on January 10, according to experts from the Institut Pasteur, “undoubtedly exceeding the current hospital capacity”. The report published on Wednesday recalls that the reduction of social contacts could make it possible to bend the curve of hospitalizations.
Vaccination rate
The Institut Pasteur also shows that the vaccination rate could influence the scale of this new wave, linked to Omicron. According to the models, the injection of 1.2 million doses per day would reduce the size of the peak by 17% compared to a situation where only 800,000 doses would be administered. Despite the shortening of the time to perform the booster dose, now reduced to three months, vaccinations have collapsed since the start of the school holidays.
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In addition, “the absence of a significant increase in hospitalizations in London with the Covid-19 as a reason for admission is an encouraging sign that should be followed carefully in the days to come”, indicated the researchers of the Pastor Institute. New, more precise data should soon be available.