3rd dose, wearing a mask, teleworking … What could be announced at the end of the Defense Council – LCI

“This fifth wave, it starts in a dazzling way”, had alerted the spokesman of the government, Sunday, November 21, at the end of a week which had seen double the number of daily cases. Similar warnings are increasing: the virus has resumed rapid circulation, and it is necessary to prevent a new straining of hospital capacities.

If the last intervention of the Head of State had already given rise to a strengthening of the control of the health pass, the Health Defense Council scheduled for this Wednesday morning could expand the arsenal of measures in place. Generalization of the “third dose”? Back to telecommuting? We take stock of what the government is considering at this stage.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if we gradually moved towards booster shots for all adults who have been vaccinated, that’s the sense of the story”, had already declared Emmanuel Macron last Friday. This presidential “prognosis” is now confirmed by the opinion of the Scientific Council and the Vaccine Strategy Orientation Council (COSV), two health authorities according to which this expansion of the booster dose would make it possible to “curb the epidemic and reduce the number of

severe forms “.

According to a government adviser interviewed by LCI, the Health Defense Council could establish a schedule for the administration of the “third dose”, “by stages and by age categories”, but without extending it, for the time being, to the entire population. The booster dose (which is generally a third dose), without being compulsory strictly speaking, will condition, from December 15, access to the health pass for those over 65 and people at risk of severe forms, as well as caregivers.

On the other hand, if the 50-64 year olds will be offered a third dose from December 1, their obligation to do so to keep the health pass is not yet considered. The age group of 40-49 years should also be quickly associated with this calendar, suggested the Minister of Health on Tuesday morning. The booster dose being deemed necessary six months after the last vaccination, Olivier Véran reminds that it is only “during December” that the first forties will begin to be affected.

However, the generalization of the “third dose” does not achieve consensus among the experts, some believing that two doses sufficiently protect the serious forms of the disease, and that the real priority is the first vaccination of the French not being there. still submitted.

According to a government source contacted by LCI, the other “strong message” which should leave the Defense Council, will relate to the wearing of the mask: “Today, nobody understands anything anymore”, according to this source. The mask – compulsory or not depending on the place, the region where you are, or depending on whether you are outside or inside – tends to disappear by lack of consistency, which the government will seek to reverse.

It is therefore probably a simplification of the wearing of the mask that will be announced: it could thus make its return outdoors and in certain places open to the public where it had sometimes been abandoned due to the decline in the epidemic.

The executive does not seem willing to push for a general return to teleworking, according to information gathered by LCI. During a meeting of LaREM deputies this Tuesday morning, Christophe Castaner also stressed that the “strategy is not intended to be upset”. The president of the parliamentary group of the presidential party urged his deputies to “take stock of the choices we have made: not to reconfine the country”. A guideline that seems to move away from the hypothesis of a return to work at home for all: the economy is just restarting, and the authorities seem to be opting for a strengthening and consistency of the measures already in place.

Other avenues will be studied by the Defense Council, resulting in particular from the recommendations of the Scientific Council. This one pleads in particular for a “reinforcement of reactive screening at school”, and for the return to the use of diagnostic tests in the general population. The decline in the use of screening, which has been accentuated since the end of its free service, complicates the fight against the epidemic by delaying the detection of contamination. The Scientific Council also emphasizes ventilation procedures, which winter encourages people to ignore.