Test, trace, isolate… The government mantra repeated over and over during the first two years of the Covid-19 epidemic is living its last hours. Admittedly, in mid-January, the screening rate was already at its lowest level since August 2020 and few people were still receiving notifications of contact cases from Medicare. But it is the most symbolic measure of the Covid era which is lifted on Wednesday 1is February: systematic isolation for people who test positive is no longer required. In addition, contact cases are no longer asked to take a test on “D + 2”. With the abandonment of these two measures introduced on January 3, 2022, the authorities seem to want to turn the page of the Omicron tsunami.
January 31 also marks the end of the Contact Covid teleservice, which made it possible to search for contact cases around an infected person. A very concrete consequence is, in the event of sick leave linked to Covid-19, the return of the waiting period before the payment of daily allowances by Social Security, as specified in a decree published on Saturday January 28 in the Official newspaper.
Finally, from Wednesday, oral consent on the sharing of personal data will be requested from anyone being tested in a pharmacy or laboratory. In case of refusal, it will no longer be possible to obtain a negative test certificate. But the result of the test will remain readily available in all cases and the data thus anonymized will always be used for epidemiological surveillance.
- Is this the end of the measures against Covid-19?
This decision by the Ministry of Health is based on the recommendations made by the High Council for Public Health (HCSP) in a letter sent on January 26. According to its author, Didier Lepelletier, “we must continue to monitor epidemiological indicators in order to be able to put measures in place if necessary”. The president of the HCSP specifies that the institution does not recommend ending the isolation and screening of contact cases “but to no longer resort to it systematically”. “This is an evolution to move away from the mandatory aspect of these measures and instil in the population universal gestures of hygiene for the protection of the weakest”insists Mr. Lepelletier.
A plea in favor of barrier gestures, therefore, rather than a blank check given to the population to no longer protect themselves. At the heart of the good reflexes to adopt: wearing a mask as soon as symptoms evoking a respiratory disease appear.
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