Covid on an upward slope in France, before the holidays and the Olympic Games

An increase "more and more marked",both for visits to the emergency room (+52% over one week) and to SOS Médecins (+51%, with 1,507 procedures from June 3 to 10).

Wastewater, where the presence of Sars-CoV-2 is monitored in 12 stations, also shows a clear progression in viral circulation over the past month.

Young people were the first to illustrate the return of Covid, in the wake of the concerts of American singer Taylor Swift in Paris in May. On social media, fans showed off their positive tests or encouraged others "Swifties" to get tested.

An epidemic rebound in several European countries

"After a long period of low activity", several European countries have experienced an epidemic rebound in recent weeks, the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) recently reported.

"The rise was predictable", Mircea Sofonea, epidemiologist at the& rsquo;University of Montpellier and Nîmes University Hospital.

Cause: "an immune decline" of the population, but also "an immune escape" new sub-variants of the virus, all members of the Omicron JN.1 lineage, according to this expert. The Spike protein, which allows SARS-CoV-2 to penetrate host cells, appears to have key mutations in these variants.

"There is no evidence to our knowledge for this new wave to cause a greater health impact than the previous two", according to Mircea Sofonea .

Nothing suggests increased severity of current variants, including a new derivative of Omicron, called KP.2 and nicknamed "FLiRT", detected in Europe and the United States .

Watch out for the Olympics cocktail

If, since May  2023, the World Health Organization no longer considers the pandemic a global health emergency, it regularly reminds that SARS-CoV-2 "continues to circulate and evolve". The risk remains of a more dangerous variant.

"The evolution of Omicron since the end of 2021 shows us to what extent the evolution of SARS-CoV-2 is far from being linear: older lineages are resurfacing surface thanks to a significant evolutionary leap, then diversify, recombine, noted the epidemiologist. And if SARS-CoV-2 has the potential to become seasonal, according to several experts, this is not yet a reality.

Over time and waves, the impact of Covid on hospitalizations and deaths has however greatly diminished, thanks to the high level of immunity acquired through vaccination and/or infections. But it is not zero, and long Covids are added to it.

If vaccines lose their effectiveness against infections over time, they remain very protective against serious forms, insist the health authorities. A new campaign, targeting those over 80 and the most vulnerable, began in mid-April in France.

To better match the mutations of the virus, the WHO recommended at the end of April formulations targeting the JN.1 lineage for future anti-Covid vaccines. The mask remains recommended, particularly in the event of symptoms, in busy places and in the presence of vulnerable people. And caution remains in order for the Olympic Games. Because the cocktail of "mixing, promiscuity, convivial context promotes the transmission of SARS-CoV-2, like other respiratory viruses", recalled Mircea Sofonea.