Page 54 - Monaco-Economy-118

Update

“People are contaminated mostly

at home or at work” Interview by Milena Radoman

Testing, tracing and modes of transmission: Department of Health Affairs Director, Alexandre Bordero, and
physician and Public Health Inspector, Eric Voiglio, look back over a year of Covid-19. Both are members

of the Health/Science Group, upon whose opinions the Monaco government bases its decisions.

One year on, what do you know about the done by school nurses and doctors. When, in AB: That system calls for a sense of
origins of Covid-19? Was it transmitted to a class of 30, you find that the five that have responsibility. In some Asian countries, those
humans by scaly anteaters or bats? tested positive shared an e-cigarette or held a who tested positive would be registered by the
AB: We in fact know very little. Its origin is pyjama party, there’s a very good chance that state. After X number of days, the phone’s QR
difficult to determine. There are even some the disease was spread at that moment. code would become negative and people would
retrospective studies which show that Covid-19 EV: Because of one positive student, sometimes be allowed to go to the supermarket again.
was already in Europe before its official arrival. we have had to test up to 80 people. Positive people were required to stay at home
The pandemic, with its waves and the way it and would be called randomly on the phone.
spreads, is so unpredictable. In the workplace, are coffee breaks high-risk
for transmission? Has an app for Monaco been considered?
Are the tests reliable? Do 30% of PCR tests EV: The disease is, indeed, spread during coffee AB: We looked into it, based on the French
still show false negative results? and cigarette breaks, as well as at lunchtime, StopCovid app; but when that did not meet with
EV: Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests are when people eat together without respecting great success, we went no further with it. We
around 70% to 90% accurate. A year ago, the the barrier measures. also have another problem – half the people who
samples were not standardised but today we work in the Principality come in from France or
are closer to 85% or 90% accuracy. Why does the disease spread less easily at Italy every day.
a restaurant?
A year after the beginning of the pandemic, EV: People are seated at restaurants and served There was the Christmas Coronavirus effect,
have you carried out an epidemiological at the table. They do not move around. Social then the New Year effect – can you see
assessment? distancing is respected. an effect of the so-called British strain of
AB: We are undertaking a retrospective study AB: There’s less freedom at a restaurant than Covid-19? What is the current breakdown of
of the past year and all the figures, including during a communal meal at the workplace, with the different variants?
the number of Covid-19 patients, the number of five people sharing a kitchenette. When work EV: It’s too soon to say. I would tend to say
positive RAT and PCR tests and so on. canteens are managed like restaurants, with no. We have been looking for variants since
barrier measures in place, there is very little risk early February. When there is a positive PCR
What are, therefore, your conclusions as to of infection – but these are few and far between. with a sufficient viral load, a new PCR test is
the mode of transmission within Monaco? carried out with special probes which allow the
EV: It so happens that people mostly spread the What about public transport, auditoriums and three remarkable variants - English, Brazilian
illness at home and at work – and not at school. shops, which are places of physical proximity? and South African - to be determined. For the
Tracing across educational establishments EV: Here, we reach the limits of the study as there moment, the English variant is very much in the
shows that fewer than 1% of contacts were are a certain number of cases that we cannot majority compared to the classic strain, which
contagious. Pupils are most likely to catch trace. On public transport, it is impossible to is no longer the original Wuhan strain. More
the disease at home or during extra-curricular trace contact cases. contagious than the first strain, it now accounts
activities: for example, a number of pupils from AB: The only way to trace these types of contacts for 80% of transmissions. So far, though, the
the same class spread the disease during a would be to use Bluetooth apps that all nations, symptoms are no more serious.
pyjama party. except in Asia, have refused on civil liberty and
data protection grounds. How do you explain the fact that at the
Can you really pinpoint the moment of beginning of this year there were more Covid-
transmission? It seems a bit complicated. What is your opinion of that technology? 19-related deaths than in 2020? Who is the
AB: Of course it is complicated but, if we take EV: It could be improved: it is not reliable enough typical Covid-19 patient?
schools as the example, we can be almost and would need mobile phones to be updated as AB: Quite simply because there were more
certain, thanks to the meticulous enquiries older models are not compatible with the apps. cases of Covid-19 than the year before! Deaths
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