While France is struck by several epidemics, the Committee of Experts considers that this situation becomes the standard and does not recommend the obligation to wear the mask, while noting the low efficiency of recommendation messages.
by Florence Rosier
Approach to the end of year celebrations, three respiratory epidemics – COVVI -19, flu and bronchiolitis – strike the country head -on. In this tense context, the opinion of Covars experts was eagerly awaited on Monday, December 19. With this throbbing question: the scientific body responsible for advising the health authorities going to recommend the obligation to carry the mask?
The answer is no. “We are entering a new story of infectious diseases, explained Brigitte Autran, who presides over Covars. Each year will be a triple winter epidemic, or perhaps other epidemics, which will require the same barriers. From the mask in enclosed environments is, with vaccination, the main shield against the dissemination of these epidemics. “Therefore,” it is a little difficult to consider the use of the obligation [of the port of the mask] each year ” , estimates this immunologist.
balancing number
The Covars issued a series of arguments for or against the obligation. On the one hand, an obligation would have a rapid impact on respecting the wearing of the mask in places at risk, for the entire population. On the other, the population would perceive it as a limitation of its individual freedoms.
The exercise, it is true, is a balancingist number. Because, at the same time, Covars highlights the “very low level of the port of the mask in public transport and other enclosed places”. This leads him to admit “the low efficiency of the recommendation messages maintained, but at least, in public transport in the last six months, despite more recent calls, in particular political figures”.
However, the Covars highlights the fact that the triple epidemic of respiratory virosis, by registering in an annual seasonal pace, should “encourage active research of the adhesion of individuals and communities at the port of mask with each epidemic recovery “. Covars considers it necessary “a specific information effort on the part of the authorities”.
“In an epidemic situation that will last, it is necessary to integrate these barrier gestures into our daily life,” insisted virologist Bruno Lina, member of the Covars. The port of the mask should become “a civic gesture, a gesture of solidarity” vis-à-vis the most fragile but also of the whole society, added Brigitte Autran, since it also contributes to protecting the hospital. An argument followed by the Minister of Health, François Braun, who has so far decided not to make the mask compulsory, like most European countries – only Germany and Spain have maintained this obligation in transport in commmon. Covars, moreover, recommends strengthen the accessibility of masks, in particular by extending their free – they are already free for the most fragile.
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