“Caution would have liked us to shift”: infectious disease specialist Gilles Pialoux is worried about the lifting of the port … – BFMTV

Despite the current health improvement, “we do not know what will happen in 15 days or three weeks”, recalled the infecitologist.

From next Monday, wearing a mask will no longer be compulsory in primary school in 68 departments. This lifting of the restriction has already been active in 47 departments since last Monday, but for Gilles Pialoux, head of the infectious and tropical diseases department at Tenon hospital, “prudence would have liked us to postpone” this relaxation of the rule.

If he notes “the current improvement, the lull, there is an uncertainty of what will be behind”, he explained this Thursday on BFMTV / RMC. “We do not know what will happen in 15 days or three weeks, prudence would have wanted that we shift”, he declares, recalling that it is this that the scientific council had requested.

“We don’t know how the virus circulates” at school

Health restrictions in schools have been divisive since the start of the Covid crisis. Some health professionals highlight the fact that removing the mask in schools is psychologically and pedagogically beneficial for children. While others point to the health risks associated with this lifting of restrictions in schools, places of mixing of the population.

For Gilles Pialoux, if he explains on our antenna to hear “the complaints”, the scientific literature does not allow according to him to decide in favor of the lifting of the obligation to wear a mask.

“There is not a scientific study worthy of the name which shows the deleterious effect of the mask in children. So I mean psychologists, parents, associations of parents of pupils, but we are not in science, we are in the feeling “, he explains.

In addition, “as a doctor I am surprised that we make decisions in schools without knowing how the virus circulates within the school environment, because we do not know”, he declares. . He points to the very weak screening campaigns in schools “so we don’t know how the virus circulates”.

“Why go through experimentation?”

He is in favor of the generalization at the national level of the measures proposed by the scientific council which had proposed in mid-September to systematically and weekly test primary school students and to isolate only positive cases for Covid-19. The government is currently testing this system in several departments.

“Why go through experimentation?” Asks Gilles Pialoux.

“It has been shown, there have been models that show that when you have a system for screening children with a saliva test twice a week, you hardly close classes.” For him it is therefore not a scientific decision, “it is a political decision”.