Health pass: why the Scientific Council calls on the government to change the discourse – archyworldys

This is one of the pillars of the government’s strategy to deal with the Covid-19 epidemic, but it will not be enough. The health pass entered into force in restaurants, cinemas, trains and many other places on August 9. It “cannot be the sole guarantor of the absence of contamination between people who find themselves in a place where it is required and must not be understood or implemented as absolute protection against contamination”, warn the experts of the Scientific Council in their last “alert note”, sent to the government on August 20 and uploaded this Friday morning. Thus, “strengthening the control of compliance with the health pass or even seeking to achieve its absolute compliance could falsely make its users believe that they are totally protected and seems to be avoided”, they judge.

To understand this concern of the Scientific Council, we must look at the characteristics of the Delta variant. Let us recall in the preamble that the health pass can be used if you are fully vaccinated, if you tested negative within 72 hours, or if you tested positive between 6 months and 11 days earlier.

Lower efficacy of vaccines against infection

The protection of vaccination against severe forms due to the Delta variant appears to remain very high, around 90% or more. But this strain reduces the effectiveness of vaccines against infection and symptomatic forms, which would drop “around 50%”, suggest several recent studies. This leads to the existence of a “risk of introduction of the virus from vaccinated but infected persons”, notes the Scientific Council.

At the same time, however, unvaccinated people who test negative and who are also in places affected by the health pass are “at high risk of infection”. They themselves can also be contagious on D-Day, especially since the extension to 72 hours of the time allowed to be tested. Indeed, the incubation time (separating contamination from the onset of symptoms) is reduced with the Delta variant. There is therefore a greater risk that an individual will be infected on the day of the test (without being positive) or in the hours which follow, then contagious the day he uses his health pass.

Wearing a mask is still recommended

Less than three weeks ago, the Scientific Council had yet given a “favorable opinion” to this passage from 48 to 72 hours, wanted by the government to cope with the explosion in the number of tests carried out each day. “It is a somewhat courteous formula to say that it is not scientifically founded, instead of simply giving scientific facts and then letting the government take its responsibilities”, then regretted to the Parisian Claude-Alexandre Gustave, former assistant university hospital in microbiology.