As the experts argue, is the “worst case scenario” really going away?

What if this was the beginning of the end? The light at the end of the tunnel? The long-awaited glimmer of hope? Admittedly, the figures for the coronavirus epidemic have been going from record to record in recent weeks, but they have started to drop slowly in recent days. Better still, according to epidemiologist Arnaud Fontanet, we are even on the right track. “The decline has begun,” said the member of the Scientific Council, this Monday on France Inter. But why are Covid-19 experts so sure that “the worst-case scenario is moving away”, when France recorded more than 300,000 cases of contamination, on average, last week, a figure never reached since the end of the week? start of the pandemic?

March as a goal

If we listen to Arnaud Fontanet, the scenario for the days to come is rather clear: “The peak of infections has passed these days at least in Ile-de-France, it will be a little later in the other regions. . Hospital admissions are expected to increase in the coming days and then peak in the coming week. On the other hand, the patients will remain in the hospital, we can expect that they will remain very busy throughout February. But we have the feeling that the peak is passing before our eyes. »

And the words of the epidemiologist resonate with many specialists. In an interview given to L’Express, on Friday, Alain Fischer, the government’s “Mr. Vaccine”, said that a “calm period” would open “from March”. The same bell rang on the part of Vittoria Colizza, director of research at Inserm, who noted “a slowdown in growth momentum.” “We can expect a fairly rapid decline,” she said in an interview with Sunday newspaper.

.@ArnaudFontanet : “Yes, the worst-case scenario is moving away, the decline has begun, the peak of infections has passed these days at least in Île-de-France. Hospital admissions should peak in the week who is coming.” #le79Inter pic.twitter.com/bWovl62PGV

– France Inter (@franceinter) January 17, 2022

These projections seem valid for the rest of Europe. According to data from the World Health Organization (WHO) regional office for Europe, “the peak of the Omicron wave could come [en Europe] around the third week of January with more or less in advance depending on the country,” Antoine Flahault, director of the Institute of Global Health at the University of Geneva, told AFP.

Falling numbers

While it must be recognized that the figures have never been so high, there are still some encouraging signs. Sunday evening, critical care services counted 3,852 seriously ill with coronavirus, as the day before, against 3,895 Friday and 3,939 Thursday. By way of comparison, there were more than 6,000 last April. On the other hand, the total number of patients hospitalized in France continues to rise (24,887, against 24,544 on Saturday).

As for contamination, Public Health France has counted 278,129 cases in the past twenty-four hours, against 296,097 the previous Sunday. On average, over the last seven days, there have been 294,452 daily cases against 313,252 the previous Sunday. And that’s not all. In Corsica and Ile-de-France, the incidence rate has started to drop. In the Paris region, it went from more than 4,100 to 3,700 positive cases per 100,000 inhabitants over a week, according to figures from Public Health France.

Unlike his colleagues, Mircea Sofonea, lecturer in epidemiology and the evolution of infectious diseases at the University of Montpellier, is more cautious. “We cannot say that we are already in decline, but it is on the right track”, he explained to 20 Minutes. Epidemiological forecasts do not allow “to give precise dates”, but the peak should be reached “during the second half of the end of January”, before a probable decline, analyzed the specialist. “We stay on what we had modeled at the end of December”, he added about the forecasts of the Institut Pasteur which estimates that the peak of daily hospitalizations (between 2,500 and a little more than 5,000 patients) will be reached at the end of January.

Less dangerous future variants?

The Omicron variant, which appeared at the end of 2021, is however significantly more contagious than Delta. “The good news in all this is that with each wave we add a layer of natural and vaccinal immunity, it lasts in the protection against serious forms”, explained Arnaud Fontanet at the microphone of France Inter, recalling that the Omicron variant appeared to be less virulent and cause fewer severe forms. For Mircea Sofonea, the key to getting out of the epidemic peak caused by the Omicron variant, “is obviously the combination of post-infection immunity and the high vaccination coverage of the population”. The researcher, who insists on the importance of the booster dose, adds: “The opening of the third dose played a role, it makes it possible to counteract the drop in immunity and effectiveness which necessarily occurs after some time. »

Arnaud Fontanet assures, for his part, that the recent government measures to force companies to accept more teleworking and the “self-regulation of individuals” during an epidemic wave also contribute to the drop in contamination. According to the member of the Scientific Council, noting the explosion of contamination, individuals naturally take care to wear their mask or to avoid too many gatherings, he explained Thursday during a press conference.

Could new variants of Omicron come to shower our hopes? “There will always be variants, but they will surely be less virulent,” says Mircea Sofonea. “We are more on the prospect of eradicating Omicron. It will surely become endemic, like the flu. However, it is to be expected that there will be an alternation of variants which have the capacity to infect again because they present an immune escape”, continues the epidemiologist. But in the JDDVittoria Colizza warned: “We are still in a pandemic, and we have no evidence that this wave will be the last.” »