It is an understatement to say it: experts in epidemiology have not taken off since they discovered the health protocol imagined for the presidential election. No vaccination pass, no compulsory surgical mask in the polling stations, even less FFP2. It is barely recommended, lip service, to infected people – who can go to vote – to cover their faces. Apart from that, there will be hydroalcoholic gel galore, maybe a few surgical masks available, and it will suit the organizers to open the windows “10 minutes every hour”. “It’s great nonsense”, slice Dominique Costagliola, director of research emeritus at Inserm and member of the Academy of Sciences, with his usual outspokenness.
Like her, her colleagues are in despair to see that the public authorities hardly learn from the advances in science on the mode of transmission of the virus: “Covid is not a gastro, hand washing is largely insufficient! Ministry of Health had asked ANSES more than a year ago for a summary on transmission by aerosols, in which I participated. It is well established today that infectious particles can remain in suspension for more than a year. “one hour in a room, even when the contagious person has already left. All this to see so little transposition into preventive measures…”, sighs Mircea Sofonea, lecturer in epidemiology at the University of Montpellier. “However, it was not very complicated to better protect voters, and especially assessors,” insists Professor Antoine Flahault, director of the Institute of Global Health at the University of Geneva (Switzerland).
“Avoid speaking, or speaking too loudly”
For all these specialists, it would have been necessary first and foremost to focus on ventilation. “Basically, the protocol reverses the hierarchy of levers: not just ten minutes every hour, but leave open, only close if it’s really too cold, ask the assessors to cover themselves accordingly… and to plan to what to prevent the ballots from flying away”, explains Mircea Sofonea. Otherwise, equip polling stations with CO2 sensors: “Below 600 ppm, the risk of contamination seems almost zero. Between 600 and 1000, a mask should be enough to protect yourself. Above 1000, you have to evacuate the room, ventilate it and set up a gauge or even an air purifier if the room is difficult to ventilate”, indicates Professor Flahault. The rule of ten minutes every hour therefore makes little sense: “It all depends on the configuration of the premises”, summarizes Dominique Costagliola.
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Under these conditions, voters will have every interest in coming masked, and the most fragile in preferring an FFP2. The authorities, however, have hardly insisted on the usefulness of this very protective mask. Not even for the organizers of the polling stations: “The surgical mask mentioned for the assessors is unsuitable for the contagiousness of BA.2, a fortiori if the voters themselves come unmasked”, notes Mircea Sofonea. Another suggestion, directly drawn from scientific studies on the circumstances of propagation: avoid speaking, or speaking too loudly: “The higher your voice is raised, the greater the transmissions”, explains Mircea Sofonea again.
“Assessors risk being exposed to large doses of the virus”
If the voters will probably find themselves relatively little exposed – except for waiting a long time, without a mask, in corridors or poorly ventilated rooms – the researchers are however very worried about the assessors. “Those who are a little old, or who have risk factors or who are not vaccinated would have every interest in being replaced”, insists Mahmoud Zureik, professor of epidemiology at the University of Versailles-Saint-Quentin-en -Yvelines. “The epidemic is at a high level of circulation in the population. These people are therefore at risk of being exposed to large doses of the virus. However, several studies have shown a link between the viral load and the risk of developing a severe form. or a long Covid”, specifies Professor Flahault, citing a recent publication in the journal Cell. Another risky situation, according to scientists: counting. There too, the volunteers could well find themselves locked up for several hours in closed rooms. In addition to the previous advice, ventilation and FFP2 mask, Mircea Sofonea adds another proposal: “Distribute the people in charge of the counting in the maximum possible rooms”.
The official recommendations, although insufficient, do not surprise Professor Zureik: “They are in tune with the times, and the very optimistic ambient discourse on the evolution of the epidemic. No candidate, moreover , did not speak, neither on this subject, nor to say how they intend to manage the epidemic after the election”. Is this new ballot in times of Covid likely to relaunch viral circulation? Mircea Sofonea ran his team’s model: “Between the people who will be contaminated on the same day, and the chains of transmission they will initiate afterwards, we estimate that we could have at most a million additional contaminations, that is to say infections that we would not have witnessed without the ballot. That seems like a lot, but the resulting hospital impact will be marginal,” he said.
At the current level of circulation of the virus, this increase in infections should therefore not change much: “There is already so much relaxation that the election will simply be one more contributory element, but it should not be decisive on the dynamics of the epidemic,” said Mahmoud Zureik. The most visible cases will certainly be those of the organizers of the polling stations. After the 2020 municipal elections, various journalistic investigations had indeed shown that clusters had appeared in their ranks during the first round and that some had died as a result. “There is a form of political risk that is taken, because if assessors are indeed sick again between the two rounds, we will know. I find it surprising that the lessons of the previous election have not been drawn from it” , asks Antoine Flahault. With all the same a hope: that the voters like the members of the polling stations hear the calls of the epidemiologists, and are more cautious than the public authorities.
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