FRANCE BLIND TO THE EVOLUTION OF COVID

On paper, France is back in the green. With just over 20,000 new cases of Covid-19 contamination detected every day, the few figures that are today communicated by the health authorities show a marked improvement in the situation on the epidemic front.

Can the French rejoice? Not so much, and for good reason: it is difficult to trust the data that is currently shared. “These data cannot be interpreted, indicates Public Health France in a weekly report. Some rates are underestimated. »

Why ?

Firstly because since October 27, medical analysis laboratories no longer communicate the results of screening tests against Covid-19 to the national screening test file (SI-DEP). The latter are indeed opposed to the 2023 provisional budget of Social Security, which will force biologists to make 250 million euros in savings each year: an "unacceptable planing blow" for the profession:

"Faced with the deafness of the public authorities, we have decided to suspend the transmission of screening data on the SI-DEP platform", announced a few days ago Alain Le Meur, spokesperson for the Alliance for Medical Biology ( APBM).

The Department of Research, Studies, Evaluation and Statistics (Drees) noted a decrease of nearly 80% in the number of test results shared in this database at the start of this movement... According to our colleagues from Parisian, the laboratories have resumed sharing data since Wednesday, November 2, but professionals in the sector are threatening a strike from November 14 if they do not win their case with Thomas Fatôme , Director of Health Insurance.

A new sub-variant – BQ.1.1, spoilsport ?

To this is also added the drop in the number of tests carried out in France. On average, just under 90,000 tests are recorded every day in the country: such a low figure has not been observed since August 2020. The fewer the tests, the less visibility is good on the Covid-19 front. 19. This epidemiological monitoring is all the more important as a new sub-variant - BQ.1.1. - is gradually establishing itself in the country and gaining ground. BQ.1.1. could become dominant in the country within the next few weeks.

“We have never seen one of the Omicron sub-variants impose itself without causing an epidemic wave, and it is not very clear why this would not be the case this time”, affirms Antoine Flahault, director of the Institute of Global Health in Geneva.