Covid’s last hell tears Europe apart as France fears FIFTH wave ravages nation | United Kingdom | New
The rise in cases follows a steady decline since the fourth wave in mid-August.
Last week, the number of hospitalizations in France increased by 15 people over 24 hours to 6,483, while the country recorded 5,934 new confirmed cases over 24 hours, which marks a slight increase from a week longer. early.
However, the French government denies that this spike in cases is a “fifth wave”, with government spokesman Gabriel Attal calling the situation a “very slight rebound”.
The number of new cases of Covid in France has now passed on average above the 5,000 daily contamination mark, the national rate reaching 50 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, which is the âalertâ threshold for France.
This is the first time that such figures have been seen since September, just after the end of the fourth wave.
Referring to the rise in cases on Europe 1, Mr Attal said: “There is a very slight rebound, but at the moment we cannot speak of a fifth wave”, adding that the rise is not ” exponential “.
France experienced a fourth wave of the pandemic in the summer, with cases exceeding eighteen thousand a day in July.
But according to epidemiologist and public health professor Philippe Amouyel, the latest increase in cases should be considered “bumps in the fourth wave”.
He told French newspaper LCI: âA wave is an extremely rapid increase in contamination. Each time, there was a good reason.
âDuring the first wave, there was no barrier measure. In the second, we completely relaxed in the summer of 2020.
Some 88% of the French population has received at least one dose of the vaccine and the recall campaign is proceeding rapidly.
However, 500,000 people at risk have still not been vaccinated, in addition to those who are due to receive their third dose.
In the meantime, only 2 million of the 6 million people eligible for this third dose have received it.
Mr Amouyel warned that if these numbers continued, mandatory vaccinations could be introduced in France, saying: “We will continue to convince people, but maybe one day, if the epidemic is rampant, we will have to consider something. compulsory thing “.
“The communication around this third dose is perhaps a little blurry, so we have to explain it again, make an effort to inform and, if we ever find ourselves in difficult situations, consider constraints, but it must be one of the last measures. “
He added: “We are staying at low levels, we are flirting with the alert threshold, but we are not reaching the emergency thresholds that we have experienced in the past.”
According to the professor of public health, only a new strain of the virus could trigger a real new wave.
He said: “The fifth wave will happen if we encounter a new variant. But at the moment, we are still fighting the same one.”
“The number of cases is likely to increase further, with the indirect relaxation of barrier measures.
“But those are just bumps in the fourth wave.”