Covid: with the easing of restrictions, the flu and gastro are also making a comeback – Midi Libre

Winter illnesses have not said their last word. After two years of calm, the flu and gastro epidemics seem to be making a comeback. And the health context would not be there for nothing. In its latest epidemiological bulletin devoted to influenza, Public Health France notes “a continued increase in all influenza indicators”. From now on, all the regions are in an epidemic situation, Corsica having joined the whole of metropolitan France in this eleventh week of the year. Sharp increase in influenza In one week, the incidence rate of consultations for flu-like illness per 100,000 inhabitants increased by 51%, while visits to the emergency room and hospitalizations for flu-like illness increased by 38%. On the gastronomic side, the contamination curve in France has also shown a sharp increase in recent weeks, according to data communicated by Géodes (Public Health France). For the health organization, the increase in the indicators of these typical winter diseases can be compared to the drop in barrier gestures and an easing of restrictions. Decline in immunity and barrier gestures Indeed, since the return of students to class after the February holidays and since March 14, the date on which the government announced the end of the wearing of compulsory masks. The rise in the flu epidemic is a phenomenon “very likely favored by the end of winter school holidays and the easing of measures to control the Covid-19 pandemic”, explained SPF to the AFP. Thus, like the previous winter, confinement and barrier gestures had largely contributed to limiting the spread of winter viruses, contamination had fallen sharply. At the same time, immunity against these same viruses has also declined, favoring this rebound, currently observed in France.