The symbolic threshold has been reached, raising fears of a new wave of COVID-19. The number of screening tests for coronavirus has “crossed” the million mark again last week, according to figures released Thursday by the Ministry of Healthwhich testifies to the beginning of an eighth epidemic wave.
The recovery is clear: with 1,132,300 tests PCR and antigens validated between September 12 and 18, the screening activity has risen “strongly” by 33% compared to the previous week, indicates the statistics department (Drees) in a press release. This barometer of the health crisis thus exceeds the symbolic threshold of one million for the first time in six weeks, after having reached its lowest levels in two years in August.
Many contaminations in children
The rebound is particularly strong among young people under 16, whose number of tests almost doubled (+97%) last week. This tends to confirm that the observed increase in pollution is “primarily driven” by this age group, as Public Health France noted in its latest weekly update.
Children and adults combined, the daily number of positive cases has almost doubled in two weeks and is now over 30,000 (on average over 7 days). “Objectively there is an increase in cases, especially among young people”, acknowledges the Director General of Health (DGS) Jérôme Salomon, in an excerpt from the magazine “Complément d’Enquête” that will be broadcast Thursday night on France 2but already posted on the site France Information.
wake up call
However, number 2 of the Ministry of Health believes that “the French perfectly understood what the responses were to this resurgence of Covid cases”, that is, “return to the barrier gestures that we know perfectly well and, for all the people who have an indication in the vaccinationto remind them”.
This new injection could be done “at the same time as the withdrawal flu “, he adds, “since it is the same elderly and frail people who should be vaccinated this fall.”