Covid-19 in France: a weaker 4th wave at the start of the school year, according to Professor Delfraissy

Published on : 06/30/2021 – 11:27

It seems inevitable but should be lower than the first three. Professor Jean-François Delfraissy expects a “fourth wave” of Covid-19 epidemic at the start of the school year, but which will be “much more nuanced than the three” previous ones, due to the level of vaccination of the population, estimated Wednesday June 30 the President of the Scientific Council.

“I believe that we will have a fourth wave but that it will be much more nuanced than the first three, because there is a level of vaccination which is not at all the same”, declared Jean-François Delfraissy on France Inter, qualifying as “falsely reassuring” the recent good figures on the incidence of the virus, because of the presence of the Delta variant, extremely contagious.

>> To see, our debate: “Variant Delta: new threat, new restrictions?”

However, the vaccine is effective “when we have had two injections” (for vaccines which require two injections) and it is not “when we have had a single injection”, he emphasizes. “Hence the message: you have to get vaccinated” and “have had your two injections for the start of the school year”.

“We have to remember what happened during the summer of last year. We were at roughly comparable figures at the end of June 2020 and we saw the second wave arrive in September. this Delta variant which has a level of transmission which is much higher “, he decrypted, calling for” realistic and conscious “.

Compulsory vaccination for caregivers?

Asked about the relevance of a third dose for the most fragile or the oldest people, Jean-François Delfraissy said that we “did not yet have extremely solid scientific data on this”.

But “the bottom of my thought is that it will take a third dose to stimulate an immune system which is a little weak when you are a certain age, for people over 60 or 70 years old”, a- he said. “A third dose will probably be considered from the fall,” he said.

The professor also indicated that he had “changed his mind” on the issue of compulsory vaccination for caregivers. “I was against the obligation but it seems to me that now we have reached the level where we will have to consider an obligation. In my eyes, a lot is being played out right now,” said the immunologist.

On Tuesday, the Minister of Health, Olivier Véran, had indicated that the Delta variant now represented 20% of contaminations in France.

With Reuters and AFP