Reduce the health pass? These models of the Institut Pasteur which guide the government – The HuffPost

CORONAVIRUS – It’s quite encouraging but be careful not to go too fast. The Scientific Council unveiled this Thursday, October 7 a new opinion in which it is particularly interested in the different scenarios for reducing the health pass, set up by the government to fight against the spread of Covid-19.

Concretely, as the government spokesperson already said Gabriel Attal, at midday, it will be necessary to wait after November 15 for “an outing in secure conditions” of the health pass, and to consider a definitive farewell to the QR code which now accompanies the outings.

The Scientific Council advances in particular as an argument that waiting after November 15 would make it possible to “consolidate the observed drop in incidence in the coming weeks” and this despite the arrival of autumn, but also to “verify the absence of the effect of the start of the school, university and professional school year ”, and finally“ to promote the booster with a 3rd dose of vaccine ”, particularly in populations at risk.

Concretely, the Scientific Council is considering progressive measures, between November 15 and the end of 2021, but above all with a maintenance of the pass in the most risky places. “For example bars, concerts, nightclubs, indoor restaurants or gyms. Maintaining the health pass in these structures would allow them to remain open ”, detail the scientists in their opinion.

Faced with the possibility of requesting the pass only from people at risk, they recall that these differentiated measures have never really been unanimous among the population. In the same way, the Council also rejects the option of a territorialized pass on the departments or the regions, at the risk that it becomes illegible for the populations, or that this creates feelings of inequality between territories.

The later the better

To develop this scenario, the entity is based in particular on new models from the Institut Pasteur. In these, the institute assessed the impact of the date of the next release on hospital admissions.

Pastor Institute

The conclusion of these models: the later the relief of the measures, the less the epidemic recovery will be strong. The objective being to avoid an epidemic outbreak like the one that took place between June 25 and July 16, and which led to incidence rates dropping from 53 to 548 per 100,000 inhabitants per week among the 20 -29 years.

If we go back to the transmission rates, measurements and behaviors of June-July, from October 15, “the combination of the relaxation of measurements / behaviors and the cooling of temperatures could (…) lead to a recovery of the epidemic, with a peak of 1,200 hospital admissions per day in February 2022. More than 100,000 people could be hospitalized for COVID-19 between October 1, 2021 and April 1, 2022 ”, warns the Institut Pasteur. The virus’s reproduction rate is believed to reach 4.7.

However, the models specify, “if the current control measures and behaviors are maintained, the reproduction rate is expected to increase gradually with the cooling of temperatures to reach a
peak at 2.8 in January 2022 ”.

Finally, in its opinion, the Scientific Council also pays attention to caregivers and also to the closure of beds. “The public authorities must pay particular attention to the very fragile situation, including in pediatric wards and in hospitals with a significant number of closed beds. This situation could put the establishments under strong tension, with the arrival of other winter pathologies and a possible new wave, even if it is limited. The question is not so much to reopen beds (…) but rather to avoid the continuation of the closure of beds ”, agrees the Council.

See also on The HuffPost: Why Covid Tests Will Pay From October 15