If last year, Professor Rémi Salomon suggested to feed Grandma Jeannette and Grandpa Jacques in the kitchen (or in the cellar depending on your affinities), this year, the experts’ recommendations for spending the end of the year celebrations calmed down are less severe. However, faced with the fulgurance of the Omicron variant, some precautions are in order to spend a Christmas in all serenity. Tests, ventilation, guests … 20 minutes (in partnership with the Scientific Council, but also Jean Castex, Olivier Véran and Public Health France) gives you some advice to minimize the risks.
Wearing a mask
If eating oysters with your mask on is not the most obvious (we challenge you), you will have to try to wear it as much as possible outside of meals, recommended the members of the Scientific Council. in a notice dated December 8 entitled “End of the year 2021: how to reconcile health and societal issues” and published on December 13 on the website of the Ministry of Health. And according to Michaël Rochoy, general practitioner, researcher in epidemiology and member of the collective “On the side of science”, “the mask is what works best. From the moment you remove it, you take a risk ”.
Aeration
So yes, it is not ecological, yes, it will go -10 ° C in the living room, yes, Auntie Sylvie will repeat four times “we heat the garden”, but we can never repeat it enough (well the Scientific Council) : the premises must be “regularly ventilated for at least ten minutes every hour or permanently if possible during the event”. “The aeration has one objective: to eliminate the quantity of potentially contaminated aerosol in the air,” insists Pascal Crépey, epidemiologist at the School of Advanced Studies in Public Health. It’s better to have a New Year’s Eve with a sweater and to air it out, rather than being warm and taking the risk. “Moreover, for the specialist, aeration is more effective than wearing the mask between the turkey and the salad.
Respect barrier gestures
As our two poets, Mc Fly & Carlito say so well, “if we want to rediscover these sensations of yesterday, we must apply barrier gestures”. And Christmas is no exception. So even if Uncle René insists on kissing you (always respecting consent), you must avoid hugs. “For fragile people, likely to have serious forms, we really have to limit contact. For example, we know that there is a high incidence in children, so we must be particularly vigilant that they are not contagious before seeing the grandparents and trying to keep a physical distance ”, recommends Pascal Crepey.
Christmas or not, it is obviously necessary to remember to wash your hands regularly, adds the Scientific Council, which notes that it is “during private meetings” that “individual protection measures are less well respected”. And of course, we don’t all try to put our hands in the bowl of peanuts (it works with any food).
Limit the number of guests
If last year, the government recommended to have a maximum of six at the table, this year, no special instructions. But there is no question of playing around for all that. The body which advises the government on the epidemic still recommends “limiting the number of participants”, without giving a figure. On the RTL Soir set, on December 1, Arnaud Fontanet, epidemiologist at the Institut Pasteur and member of the Scientific Council, did not recommend “no more than 6, if possible” at the table. It might even save you from inviting the famous Uncle René.
For Pascal Crépey, the rule is simple: “The more we are, the more there is a risk that a person will be infected among the guests. ”Michaël Rochoy, for his part, recommends“ limiting contact with people you don’t see much ”, like your old aunt Andrée, whom you don’t have in your heart, and“ make Christmas with her close circle ”.
Isolate yourself a few days before the holidays
While the world aspires only to drink a good mulled wine on the Christmas market or to stroll in the streets, eyes full of stars in front of the decorations, it is nevertheless necessary to think of limiting its contacts a few days before the holidays. . In its opinion, the Scientific Council recommends “reducing the number of contacts” in the days preceding the gatherings. “The week before Christmas, we must take even stronger precautions than usual,” says Michaël Rochoy.
A booster dose for the most fragile
To limit the risks as much as possible, the Scientific Council recommends checking that Grandma Jeannette and Grandpa Jacques have “received their booster dose” (we hope that they will remember it otherwise it adds another difficulty). “The most fragile or unvaccinated people can wear an FFP2 type mask as soon as possible,” adds the authority. “The best part is that everyone has had their booster dose. But if this is not the case, we must ensure that all the guests are vaccinated with at least two recent doses, ”recalls Pascal Crépey.
Test yourself before getting together
To limit the risk that one of the guests is contaminated, the French are invited to “perform a self-test the same day or an antigen test the day before or the day of the event”. The Scientific Council recommends, for example, to the host to buy self-tests (for the most tight-lipped, we reassure you, it costs only 5 euros) and to make them “available upon arrival of the participants”. “If a self-test, done the same morning, is negative, there is very little chance that this person will be contagious at mealtime,” reassures Pascal Crépey. And if ever, the test is positive, we collect our gifts, we turn around, we go home, we cry all the tears of our body and we put on the whole package of Ferrero Rocher without any remorse.
Be careful, the self-tests are reserved for people who have no symptoms or who are not “contact cases”, recalls Mickaël Rochoy, who recommends for the latter or symptomatic people to perform a PCR test. “It is not one measure in particular that will protect you, it is a set of different measures that help reduce the risk”, insists Pascal Crépey. With that, merry Christmas everyone!