Key Points

COVID-19

The COVID-19 epidemiological situation continues to deteriorate at the regional level. Brittany is currently more severely affected than other regions, and several factors can be cited to explain this situation:

• Brittany is a region that has been relatively spared until now and therefore has a larger pool of people susceptible to infection. Even though the region has the highest vaccination rate, the vaccines’ effectiveness is limited against mild cases. This is supported by a low impact on general hospital admissions and no impact on intensive care units.

• A high number of cases at the time certain restrictions on preventive measures were lifted led to an increase in contacts. In the presence of a more contagious variant, this therefore created a snowball effect.

• This high number of cases at the start of this wave can be explained by the fact that Brittany’s trajectory was time-shifted compared to other regions. It had therefore not yet “come down” from the fifth wave.

• This is particularly true in Finistère, as the eastern part of the region has been less spared so far.

Bronchiolitis

• Non-epidemic activity

Acute gastroenteritis

• Moderate activity. Early signs of a decline in the number of emergency room visits among children under 5.

Influenza and influenza-like illness

• Epidemic activity in the rising phase.

• The first available data on the effectiveness of the influenza vaccine indicate moderate to high efficacy against the A(H1N1)pdm09 virus and low efficacy against A(H3N2) (unconsolidated data, National Influenza Bulletin, S12).