With 18,000 cases of Covid-19 recorded in 24 hours on Tuesday, France is in the midst of an “epidemic outbreak”, alerted Jean Castex on Wednesday. Invited to speak on the health situation in France in 13 hours of TF1, the Prime Minister again underlined the dangerousness of the Delta variant, and promoted the vaccination campaign, which he defended by arguing that “96% of these 18,000 cases” had not received an injection .
▶ 🔴 “We are in the fourth wave. The variant #Delta is there, it is in the majority … + 140% in 1 week, 18,000 cases “of # Covid19 yesterday … And 96% of these 18,000 cases were not vaccinated “: @JeanCASTEX in # LE13H of @ TF1 @LCI > https://t.co/OCC41zPBjv. pic.twitter.com/QTU3gqteAq
– TF1LeJT (@ TF1LeJT) July 21, 2021
A very telling statistic, which is not taken from the data of Public Health France but from a study conducted by the Directorate of Research, Studies, Evaluation and Statistics (DREES) between June 28 and July 4. Already mentioned by the Minister of Health, Olivier Véran, on July 15, this study therefore does not concern the 18,000 daily cases mentioned by the Prime Minister.
96% of patients positive for # covid19 and showing symptoms were not vaccinated. The vaccine protects you. The vaccine protects us.
– Olivier Véran (@olivierveran) July 15, 2021
A first approximation which did not prevent the head of government from reiterating this argument a few hours later in front of the senators, as reported by France Info. “96% of people infected in recent days” – and no longer Tuesday – were not vaccinated, he said. We take stock.
FAKE OFF
What is really saying the study of the Drees ? The latter established that, among the positive cases for Covid-19 identified between June 28 and July 4, 96% of asymptomatic cases were not fully vaccinated. This figure therefore does not concern all new positive cases, while “nearly a quarter of Sars-CoV-2 infections remain asymptomatic”,
considers Public Health France.
In detail, 9% of people who tested positive and showed no symptoms had received their first dose for more than fourteen days or their second dose for less than 7 days, 4% had received their first injection recently, and 83% had not received their first injection recently. were not vaccinated.
The Prime Minister’s imprecision is all the more problematic as vaccination has progressed for three weeks and, above all, that the number of positive cases has exploded since, from around 2,500 on July 4, to already more than 21,000 on the 22nd. July. It is also good to specify that part of the 96% had already received at least one dose of vaccine, contrary to what Jean Castex could affirm.
Indicators that are difficult to interpret
In addition, these statistics should be interpreted with caution. The Drees also reminds the unvaccinated people among those being tested are “over-represented”. It should also be remembered that the greater the vaccination coverage, the greater the proportion of people vaccinated among positive cases, hospitalizations, or even deaths, will also be, since no vaccine is 100% effective.