Towards a third confinement in France? For Olivier Véran, Minister of Health, everything depends on the English variant of the coronavirus. “If the share of (this) variant were to increase significantly and we were to follow an English trajectory, containment would probably become an absolute necessity.“, he declared on January 21 before the Senate Law Commission.

“A race against time”

“The spread of the variant of English origin on French territory may be a determining element in the strategies to fight against the epidemic that we could deploy in the coming days and weeks.“, continued the minister, heard within the framework of the bill on the extension of the state of health emergency.

“When I talk about a race against time, I weigh my words. (…) This is a determining factor for the days, weeks and months to come, and I also speak in days“, he insisted.

Also read: English, South African, Brazilian… what do we know about new covid variants?

A risk of saturation

In France, this variant represents at this stage around 1.4% of the total daily contamination with covid-19, as shown by a recent survey carried out on all positive PCR tests.

Initially spotted in England, this variant, more contagious than the old one, worries the international community. Because even if it does not appear intrinsically more dangerous than the classic coronavirus, it risks posing a major problem: more infected people, it is more patients who need hospitalization, with an increased risk than the system. be overwhelmed.

Record mortality in UK

This is already the case in the United Kingdom, where hospitals are facing serious difficulties and where 1,820 additional deaths, a new daily record, were recorded on January 20. “This will continue because what we are seeing is the result of the new variant“, warned British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

The South African variant is also worrying

Other variants, including one initially detected in South Africa, are also worrying the international community. Like the English variant, they are more transmissible but a mutation of their own could also lead to ineffective vaccines and a risk of reinfection.