Louise Sallé, edited by Solène Leroux with AFP
modified to
8:07 p.m., February 01, 2022
Starting tomorrow, you can walk outside without a mask, whether in queues or in the markets and in the ski lifts. Teleworking at least three days a week is also no longer compulsory. It is nevertheless recommended for companies that can apply it. It is also the end of gauges in places receiving a seated public such as stadiums and cultural establishments. But you have to wear a mask and present a vaccination pass.
Finally, no change for the moment at school. We will know more next week on the reduction of the protocol since the Ministry of National Education and the unions will discuss this subject next Tuesday. Announcements could take place after these consultations and if decisions are taken, they will apply to the start of the school holidays.
A relief for the professionals concerned
On January 20, the government cleared the horizon of the French, blocked by nearly two years of pandemic, by detailing a schedule for alleviating the constraints weighing on daily life. Thanks to the new vaccination pass, which replaced the old health pass at the end of January, “we will be able in February to lift most of the restrictions taken to curb the epidemic”, promised the Prime Minister, Jean Castex. Promise kept: the relief of constraints takes effect this Wednesday. “It’s a big relief,” reacted to AFP Sylvie Chauchoy, director of the Zenith of Strasbourg, the largest Zenith in France.
“We still had one knee on December 27” when the gauges were announced. “We are relieved, we are going to work again, but now we have to sell tickets, the ticket is not currently selling. We have this sword of Damocles above us”, adds she.
New lifts on February 16
Two weeks later, on February 16, the nightclubs, closed since December 10, will be able to reopen and standing concerts will again be authorized. Consumption at the counter will also be possible in bars. Just like consumption in stadiums, cinemas and transport. Other European countries have already loosened their restrictions considerably, like England and Denmark. In this country, even the health pass is no longer compulsory.
In the eyes of the authorities, the lifting of the constraints is notably justified by the fact that the health threat due to the Omicron variant is limited, since it is less dangerous than its predecessors, although clearly more contagious. “It’s a political choice, in a health situation which is changing very slowly and where everyone aspires to the next world”, comments Gilles Pialoux, head of the infectious diseases department at Tenon hospital in Paris. According to him, the decline is not yet confirmed: “We have the impression that we have not yet arrived at the descent of a peak, but rather on a plateau.”
Virus circulation remains high
On average over seven days, more than 334,000 new cases of coronavirus infection were recorded in France on Monday, a figure which has been falling slightly every day since the middle of last week. But the number of cases remains at levels not seen before the arrival at the end of 2021 of the Omicron variant. And if the situation seems stable in critical care services, the number of hospitalized patients remains at a high level. “For the weeks to come, there is a great deal of uncertainty,” admits Gilles Pialoux.
Should we wait before loosening the vice? “Abandoning the mask outside risks reducing its use in closed spaces,” he worries. “Circulation of the virus remains extremely high and infections will not fall suddenly after the peak”, also warns epidemiologist Mircea Sofonea. “Insofar as constraints are alleviated without at the same time implementing braking measures such as the installation of CO2 sensors” to assess the level of contamination of the indoor air, the decline could be very slow, he warns.