Doctors are watching the new BQ.1.1 variant closely. They fear a new wave this winter because of this sub-variant whose immune escape is important. Is a new wave still possible? When will we see the end of Covid?
“We are in a transition phase”
The France has just reached the epidemic peak of the eighth wave which began at the same time as the start of the school year. While the French aspire to turn the page on the Covid, doctors are more cautious. This is the case of Professor Anne-Claude Crémieux of the infectious diseases department at the Saint-Louis hospital in Paris. “We are in a transition phase, where we can still have waves linked to the emergence of new variants“, she testified at the microphone of France info on October 24. “We are still in a very unstable situation”, she adds, referring to the nnew variant BQ.1.1 which accounts for 15% of new cases.
Coming out of the pandemic?
“What we would like to have is a balance between this virus and immunity Population. We would then be truly endemic, the immunity of the population would be sufficient to avoid or in any case significantly minimize severe forms”, specifies Professor Crémieux. Immunity either acquired by vaccination or by infection.
Endemic or epidemic: what’s the difference?
If the doctors hope for endemic stage of the Covid it’s for a simple reason. The endemic stage is declared for an infectious disease when its evolution is foreseeable with relatively constant traffic. In contrast, a virus is epidemic because its spread is fast with an increasing number of cases. Finally, currently, the Covid is at the stage pandemic because it spread over several continents.
Where is the anti-Covid vaccination coverage?
According to the Vaccintracker website, the vaccination coverage is reached since 81.0% of French people are vaccinated and 79.7% received all required doses. Those are the 18-29 years old which are proportionally lare most vaccinated with 94.46% fully vaccinated young. On the contrary, the over 75s are 87.5% to be.