A book and… an apology. The government spokesperson, Olivier Véran, returns in a book to be published Thursday on his management as Minister of Health of the Covid-19 pandemic, of which he reveals the backstage by delivering some regrets.
“On the masks, we were wrong, neither more nor less,” said the former minister on Wednesday in an interview with the Parisian, on the occasion of the publication of his book Beyond the waves (Robert Laffont editions). Moreover, “this book is also an opportunity to apologize,” he says.
Wearing a mask deemed “useless” in March 2020
In March 2020, as the Covid-19 epidemic swept through France, the health authorities deemed it “useless” to extend the wearing of masks to the entire population.
At the same time, France lacked masks: reserves had fallen from almost 2 billion units (surgical masks and FFP2) in 2009 to 100 million on the eve of the health crisis. A shortage which was then the subject of a controversy.
“Part of the public criticized us for having knowingly lied about the masks, to hide the shortage”, recalls Olivier Véran, who assures: “this is not the case. The truth is that, on the masks, we were wrong, neither more nor less”.
“Touched by the finger the burn-out”
The spokesperson explains that he took up the pen on the evening of the announcement of the first confinement to “remember later the emotion of the moment”, without imagining the magnitude that the crisis was going to take or knowing that he was going to make a book.
He also confides that he “touched the burnout”. In 2020, at the end of the first wave, “I had dizziness, deep nausea, throbbing legs” he reports, explaining that he was then sleeping “three hours a night”, skipping meals and was under “permanent stress”.