First change:
The French institution ruled on the measures against Covid-19 at a time when new variants of the virus are emerging: avoid talking on public transport, keep using self-made masks and the learned protection gestures, despite the new government guidelines.
The French National Academy of Medicine on Friday advised avoiding calling and calling on public transport, even when wearing a mask, but rejected the new recommendation to omit homemade masks due to the advent of more contagious variants of the COVID-19. virus.
Following the recommendations of the High Council of Health (CSSP), the French Minister of Health, Olivier Véran, asked the French on Thursday to stop using artisanal masks that are considered insufficiently filtering, as well as less filtering industrial fabric masks (known as “Category 2”).
A endorsement that is “a precautionary principle” but that “contains no scientific evidence,” the Academy of Medicine replied in a statement Friday, estimating that “the effectiveness of masks intended for the general public has never been flawed when used properly.”
“Such a change in the recommendations regarding a practice with which the whole population had become familiar, runs the risk of creating misunderstandings and re-creating doubts as to the validity of the official recommendations,” the Academy added.
He also doubts the idea of increasing the physical distance between two people from 1 to 2 meters, a “proposition that can be defended in theory, but not applicable in practice”.
Despite the “threat” of the new variants, the Academy recommends “not changing the protective gestures as defined and improved in recent months,” but remembering good behavior.
The mask is permanently advised in public places “even if the physical distance is greater than 1 meter”, cover the mouth and nose with the mask …
And the mandatory use of masks on public transport, where physical distance cannot be respected, “must be accompanied by a very simple precaution: avoid talking and using the telephone,” the Academy states.