The end of the mask for people vaccinated “would be premature” in France, says Hélène Rossinot

Get vaccinated to hope for a return to normal life after more than a year now marked by the Covid-19 crisis … In the United States, this promise has become even more concrete since the country’s health authorities lifted on Thursday , their recommendation to wear a mask for vaccinated people.

They can now participate without risk “in activities indoors and outdoors, small or large, without wearing a mask or respecting physical distancing,” announced Rochelle Walensky, director of Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC), the main federal public health agency. The American health authorities recommend that vaccinated people continue to wear a mask only in transport (planes, buses, trains, etc.), as well as in airports and train stations.

Is this strategy prudent? Can we imagine such a measure in France, in particular to encourage people to be vaccinated? Hélène Rossinot, doctor specializing in public health, replies to 20 minutes.

Does being fully vaccinated effectively dispense with wearing a mask and respecting physical distancing, as the United States has estimated?

In theory, the decision of the American health authorities is good and even rather logical. In practice, however, I find it hard to see how this new rule can be implemented. In other words: how do you check that people who no longer wear the mask have actually been vaccinated? We are sure of the declarative.

The American health authorities base their decisions on the latest scientific data, tending to show that vaccines are effective against the possibility of being infected, that of transmitting in turn, and against the spread of variants … A good calculation?

Yes, vaccines can indeed be trusted, especially on the issue of variants. They protect us well against the ones we have now. I am specifying “at the present time”. The question will be raised if new variants emerge in the coming weeks or months, which could also push the American authorities to review their recommendations.

I do have more reservations, on the other hand, on the “transmission” aspect. Of course, we know that people who are completely vaccinated, even if they are positive, transmit the disease less. But that doesn’t mean they don’t pass it on at all. It is therefore better to continue to wear the mask when in contact with people who have not yet been vaccinated or who are undergoing a particular treatment that makes them vulnerable to Covid-19, chemotherapy for example.

Can we imagine such a recommendation in France?

It seems premature to me to this day. This is another important point: people who have been vaccinated can only be allowed to dispense with masks in countries that have achieved significant vaccination coverage. This is undoubtedly the case in the United States [environ 35 % de la population américaine – soit plus de 117 millions de personnes – sont entièrement vaccinées, ndlr]. In France, we have not yet vaccinated enough people to take this risk.

The government is only hoping for the 20 million first-time vaccines mark over the weekend. All the same, it seems important to me that we think about relaxing certain health instructions for people vaccinated in France. It would not shock me, for example, if the obligation to wear a mask was lifted for vaccinated people who would meet with each other.

This possibility of doing without a mask could also be a strong argument to push the French to be vaccinated, right?

I don’t think we’ve come to that in France. If the United States has better vaccination coverage than ours to date, it is mainly because they had more doses and they vaccinated faster. But to personally make many visits to the vaccination center, I do not have the impression that the French are more reluctant to vaccines than others and that more should be done to convince them to be vaccinated. As proof of this, I have my phone filled with messages from people asking me to call them if I hear about vacancies becoming available.

On the other hand, the question which arises is that of knowing how to convince the most reluctant to go to be vaccinated. This is particularly the problem that the United States are currently facing. They reached a kind plateau since May and the rate of vaccination is now slowing down. The public authorities are then looking for ways to relaunch the campaign. Like the mayor of New York, Bill de Blasio, relaying the initiative of an American fast-food chain offering a tray of fries to vaccinated people. The decision of the American health authorities to lift the recommendation of the mask to vaccinated people undoubtedly falls within this context. But, once again, in France, we are not there yet.