Wear the mask in public, greet without shaking hands, avoid hugs, wash your hands regularly, etc. The proportion of French people who respect these barrier gestures is eroding regularly, even those who comply are still in the majority. According to a survey by Public Health France, which recalls that the prevention of Covid-19 goes through “combined measures” and not by vaccination alone, 68.1% thus declare “systematically wearing the mask in public” *. They were 70.3% in the previous wave of the survey, between June 21 and 28, and 81.6% in mid-May.
Likewise, 62.5% of those questioned say “greet without shaking hands and avoiding hugs”. They were 66.4% at the end of June and 72.1% in mid-May. This measure was respected by more than nine out of ten French people during the first confinement, in spring 2020, and eight out of ten during the second, in the fall.
“Most often men and young people aged 18 to 34”
As for hand hygiene, 60.1% of French people wash them regularly, against 60.6% at the end of June and 62.9% in mid-May. This proportion was around 70% during the second confinement. The avoidance of groupings and face-to-face meetings with relatives, which is no longer the subject of official recommendations, is respected by a third (32.3%) of those questioned, against 36.7% end of June and 43.3% mid-May.
“The populations adopting prevention measures less systematically are most often men, young people aged 18 to 34 and people with a low level” of health knowledge.
A “weariness” of the people contacted
It should be noted that the activity of tracing contact cases is also weakening, with a “drop in the proportion of new cases previously identified as contact persons”, which translates into “less identification of transmission chains”, warns the health agency. With the reopening of public places, there are more “situations of contamination where the (positive) case does not have the contact details” of the people he has worked with, while with the holidays it is “more difficult to reach the cases, ”explained Frédéric Moisan, epidemiologist at Public Health France, during an online press point.
The call platforms have also expressed a “weariness” of those contacted, he added. For her part, faced with the “significant deterioration” of the epidemiological situation, Laëtitia Huiart, scientific director of Public Health France recalls that it is “fundamental” that vaccination “be combined with other preventive measures”.
* According to the 2,000 people questioned between July 15 and July 21 as part of the CoviPrev survey, carried out regularly since the start of the pandemic.