The epidemic of the new coronavirus 2019-nCoV appeared in China worries a majority of French people, according to a survey Odoxa / Dentsu Consulting carried out for Le Figaro.

Is it the accumulation of bad news from China, or the presence of some 2019-nCoV coronavirus patients on the territory, which undermines the confidence of the French? According to a survey * Odoxa carried out with Dentsu Consulting for Le Figaro and France Info, “the coronavirus worries the French a lot” , with 52% of the respondents declaring themselves completely worried (15%) or rather worried (37%) , for themselves or their family. Only 14% of respondents say they are “not at all worried”.

“This virus is causing more concern than influenza A and avian flu over their time” (in 2009 and 2006 respectively), explains Odoxa. Only the Ebola epidemic in West Africa in 2014 had caused more concern (55% of French people).

For some, this concern is already expressed by concrete actions. One in six French people (17%) say they have already changed their own behavior in the face of the epidemic, mainly by visiting certain public places less than before, places where the risk of contamination would be the highest if the epidemic spreads in France.

Despite this emerging concern, it is not yet psychosis, and the majority of French people believe that the government is taking enough (46%) or even too much (15%) of precautions in the face of the epidemic. The trust thus placed in the authorities could obviously evolve rapidly, if the situation deteriorates in our country.

* Survey carried out on a sample of 1,005 French people representative of the population aged 18 and over, interviewed by internet on January 29 and 30, 2020.

Mortality, contagiousness … Le Figaro takes stock of the new “Chinese” virus.

While the toll of the epidemic currently raging in China is getting worse by the day, the new coronavirus (2019-nCoV) will almost certainly make you forget the other viruses, usually in the spotlight. That of seasonal influenza, which has already killed 22 people in France this year, or that of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), at the origin of an epidemic at the end of 2002. Without forgetting, the Ebola virus, which, since 1976, has claimed nearly 15,000 lives in Africa, according to the World Health Organization.

Is this new coronavirus worse? Does he deserve all the attention the world pays him?

To compare the dangerousness of several viruses, we must look at their ability to kill (fatality rate), to cause serious cases (complication rate) and their ability to move from one person to another (rate of transmission). Regarding the newcomer, all this is not yet very clear. “We have very little data on this new coronavirus, and the data we have has a very high level of uncertainty,” explains Dr. Sibylle Bernard-Stoecklin, epidemiologist in the direction of infectious diseases at the Agence Santé Publique France. We don’t know, for example, how transmissible or virulent this virus is. ”

A lower mortality rate than SARS

To date, 7,783 cases of people affected by 2019-nCoV have been confirmed. The vast majority (98.6%) is concentrated in China. Of these, 170 have died and at least 133 have been cured. “We know that many of the patients are affected by a minor form of the infection, but that 20% of the cases are severe and 2% have died,” said Dr. Michael J. Ryan, executive director of the emergency program at the World Health Organization (WHO), during a press conference held on January 29, stating that these data are likely to change in the coming days. By comparison, 50% of SARS cases were severe forms.

A mortality rate of 2% is much less than that of the SARS virus. In 2002-2003, this coronavirus, a very close cousin of 2019-nCoV, had infected 8,098 people in around 30 countries and left 774 dead. Its fatality rate has been estimated at 43% in people over 60 and 13% in those under 60. This is less than the average fatality rate of the Ebola virus, estimated at 25% but up to 90%. As for the flu, its lethality is much lower than that of other viruses, around 0.3%. In France, this represents around 10,000 deaths each year.

At this stage, however, the mortality rate for the new “Chinese” coronavirus may still change. “Some people can be infected without having symptoms, which means that we do not know the real number of people affected,” says Dr. Bernard-Stoecklin. Thus, if the total number of cases is greater than that currently displayed and if the number of deaths does not increase drastically in the coming weeks, mortality will automatically decrease.

A little more contagious than the flu

Between January 23 and 30, the number of cases in 2019-nCoV increased by 7 times. Does this make it a highly contagious virus? According to a study published January 29 in the New England Journal of Medicine , the contagiousness of the virus (called “basic reproduction rate”) would be approximately 2.2. This means that on average, each patient in turn infected 2.2 people. Other teams have carried out this work and obtained rates ranging from 1.4 to 5.5. By comparison, SARS has a reproduction rate of 3, influenza from 1.2 to 1.4 and, for Ebola, this rate is between 1 and 2.

This is very little, given the rate of measles (between 12 and 18) or that of rotaviruses, responsible for epidemics of gastroenteritis (about 18). Like the mortality rate, the basic reproduction rate of 2019-nCoV is still likely to change, especially since it depends as much on the biological characteristics of the virus as on human factors (population density, hygiene measures, etc.). ). It is only at the end of the epidemic, once all the data are available, that it cannot be definitively established.