This January 21, 2021, the Minister of Health estimated that a re-containment "would probably become an absolute necessity" in the event of a clear increase in the spread of the British variant of the coronavirus.
The hypothesis of a reconfinement seems more and more probable. After maintaining the vagueness, the government is now playing the card of mental preparation with the French. In particular, its Minister of Health Olivier Véran, who was heard this Thursday, January 21 by the Senate Law Commission, as indicated by Les Échos. It was on this occasion that Olivier Véran warned: a new confinement "would probably become an absolute necessity" if the circulation of the English variant of the coronavirus increased in France "in a sensitive way" . Its spread "can be a determining element in the strategies of fight against the epidemic", said the Minister of Health, who evokes a possible evolution in "the days, weeks and months to come." A surprisingly wide range when we know that Olivier Véran was also worried in these terms: "When I talk about a race against time, I weigh my words".
The dominant British variant in France "from the month of March"?
English, South African, Brazilian-Japanese … The variants are legion. Much more transmissible, some could resist vaccines, the great hope for finally getting out of the Covid19 pandemic. It is therefore logical that the government is monitoring their development and considering re-containment if the variant of our close English neighbors explodes. According to Professor Renaud Piarroux, researcher in epidemiology at the Pierre Louis Institute and head of department at the Pitié-Salpêtrière hospital, interviewed this Thursday, January 21 on franceinfo, this famous variant will be dominant in France "from the month of March". And will then lead to an explosion in the number of cases in France, like the one the United Kingdom has known since December 2020. "For now it's going up slowly, but it will then go up quickly. The only solution would be to reconfine very quickly. Because the longer we wait, the longer it will take the saturation of hospitals to come down, due to inertia. We talk. then in months. " If the government wants to trigger a third preventive lockdown, and not curative, it has every interest in acting now.