France sees slight rebound in Covid-19

PARIS. – Covid-19 is once again making headlines at the height of summer in France, as well as several other countries, due to an upsurge in cases.

The number of visits to emergency rooms for suspected Covid-19 cases rose by an average of 31 percent in the week following the Bayonne Festival – one of Europe’s largest festive gatherings, which attracted 1.3 million people from July 26 to July 30 – compared to the previous week.

Nine hundred and twenty patients across all age groups were seen, according to Santé publique France, a government body under the authority of the health ministry, which stated that such numbers remain “moderate”. These are the only figures available for now, as daily monitoring of the pandemic ended on June 30 due to the “favourable epidemiological context”.

French medical emergency service SOS Medécins reported an 84 percent increase in medical consultations for suspected Covid-19 cases last week compared to the previous one. While this increase concerned “all age groups”, it particularly affected children under the age of two.

The rise in incidence in mainland France is “localised, particularly in the southwest and essentially driven by the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region”, said the health ministry, noting that “most cases are in very popular holiday regions”.

This upsurge could be explained by the appearance of a new EG.5.1 variant, nicknamed “Eris” – the goddess of discord in Greek mythology – by some scientists. The World Health Organization (WHO) added this newcomer to the list of “variants of interest” last week.

“A new Covid-19 wave is appearing with the emergence of a new variant, which is more transmissible than its predecessors and establishing itself as the dominant variant,” says Antoine Flahault, epidemiologist and director of the Institute of Global Health at the University of Geneva’s Faculty of Medicine. “This is what seems to have been happening in recent weeks with the Omicron EG.5.1 sub-variant.”

The EG.5.1 strain is currently present in nearly 35 percent of viruses sequenced in France, according to Gisaid, an international database that shares official data on Covid-19. This figure “should not be taken literally”, says Mircea Sofonea, senior lecturer in epidemiology at the University of Montpellier in southern France, because “it only takes positive tests into account and we have certainly not tested all infected people”. – France24.com