Covid-19: the “measured” optimism of Professor Jean-François Delfraissy in the face of the 5th wave – LCI

The President of the Scientific Council puts the mask back on. Invited on the LCI set this Wednesday evening, Professor Jean-François Delfraissy immediately warns, “vaccination is not going to be enough” to avoid this 5th wave.

For several weeks, European countries have been facing a dizzying increase in the number of cases, coming from the east of the continent. For the virologist, “this 5th wave is a real wave” and it will not spare France, which knows this Wednesday 20,000 new cases of contamination. A record level that has not been raised since last August.

Like Prof. Bruno Lina, invited the day before on our channel, he highlights one of France’s strengths in the resurgence of the health crisis: its vaccination rate. More than 76% of French people have received two injections to date and “it changed the situation a lot”.

“We must continue to vaccinate”, he insists. “It (the vaccine) does the job of protecting against severe and severe forms, and that’s what’s important.” The same goes for the 3rd dose in the elderly. “When you get a booster, it is effective 48 hours later. There is an immediate boost in immunity.”

One nuance, however: “The vaccine does not do the job as well as one would expect against transmission.” Also, warns Jean-François Delfraissy, we must “associate a return of precautionary measures, in particular individual, in a much more general way to pass” this fifth wave.

The President of the Scientific Council, however, displays his optimism, although “measure”. “We could, with the vaccine, but also the other protective measures – the mask, washing your hands, ventilating the rooms, using the sanitary pass -, have a wave that could be taken into account by the French healthcare system, with a rate of 1200/1400 hospitalizations per day “, he raises, recalling that the first waves caused “around 2500 or even 3000 daily hospitalizations”. And to underline “It’s a lot, but it’s tenable.”

For the professor of virology, “this shows that we must continue to vaccinate”. But until when ? “We will most likely have very high and lasting immunization coverage, but for how long? I don’t know.”