“The virus is unstoppable”: for infectious disease specialist Éric Caumes, the Zero Covid strategy is “unrealistic” – BFMTV

The Zero Covid strategy consists of completely closing parts of a territory, or an entire territory, until there are no longer any cases of Covid identified.

In recent weeks, after several months of closure to protect themselves from the Covid-19 pandemic, Australia and Singapore have again opened their borders. These states are among those who have tried to put in place a Zero Covid strategy, namely to completely eradicate the virus from their territory, and to quickly confine areas in the slightest case.

But for infectious disease specialist Éric Caumes, “the virus is unstoppable” and “the Zero Covid option which had been defended by some is an option which was absolutely unrealistic. This virus cannot be stopped,” he explains. Wednesday on BFMTV-RMC. He recalls that the fact that “50% of people who have it are asymptomatic”, which leads to contaminations almost impossible to control.

“It is enough to reopen the borders for the virus to enter”

Thus, “it is enough to reopen the borders for the virus to enter, and you will see this is what will happen in Thailand, Singapore, Australia, which have just reopened the borders”, declares the infectious disease specialist , “You cannot live in seclusion like China and others have done. They reopen, and if they are not vaccinated properly with the right vaccines, the virus will circulate again.”

Because where the virus has not or very little circulated, a large part of the population has not been naturally immunized. “It is obvious that where the population has not been confronted with the disease, where the virus has been prevented from circulating by closing borders and making restrictions, it is obvious that these populations will be impacted. heavily “, explains the infectious disease specialist. Hence the importance of the vaccine. Eric Caumes gives the example of Singapore, which has very high vaccination rates.

With the opening of the borders, “we see the number of cases which is increasing dramatically because they have agreed to let the virus circulate, but hey these are cases, this does not translate into hospitalizations or death, in any case not in significant proportions because they are correctly vaccinated ”.

However, he does not necessarily say that he is worried about other countries that are less vaccinated, such as China, because this country “has shown us that it knows how to master perfectly: to test to isolate”. The risk, on the other hand, is of “falling back into at least localized confinement, with consequences for the population, and in the long term this is not tenable.”