Faced with the seventh wave, the government calls for the mask to be put back on transport

Will the summer of 2022 mark the great comeback of the mask? While more than 147,000 cases were counted Tuesday evening by Public Health France, Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne immediately asked the prefects and health authorities to encourage the wearing of masks “in crowded places” and “enclosed spaces” , in particular “public transport”. So far, these are “recommendations”, without obligation.

Brigitte Bourguignon, still Minister of Health, had already asked the French on Monday to put the mask back on transport, which has no longer been compulsory since May 16, “out of good citizenship”. Elisabeth Borne also called for “amplifying prevention messages”, such as “regularly airing enclosed spaces”, “testing yourself at the first symptoms and isolating yourself immediately in the event of a positive result”.

For the moment by “civic sense”, then by obligation?

On Wednesday, at the dawn of the first departures on vacation, the CEO of SNCF Jean-Pierre Farandou engaged, calling on travelers to wear the mask again in stations and trains, out of “civic sense”. “We must protect our staff, we must protect our travelers,” he said.

For the infectiologist Gilles Pialoux, head of service at the Tenon hospital (Paris), it is a “waiting measure compared to mass constraint measures”. “We should have used this time of relative calm to introduce prevention messages that go beyond the framework of the mask”, he regretted Wednesday on Franceinfo.

This strong rebound in contaminations (54% more than a week ago and at the highest level since the end of April) is linked to the appearance of new sub-variants of Omicron, which are particularly contagious and capable of bypassing immune defenses .