“Nothing that has happened before is decisive, but it is clear that we would have liked to have added more points away from home”, admitted Vicente Moreno before Espanyol visited the Primera, Levante team this Saturday (2pm, M The League). The outings are the main stone in the shoes of the coach of Massanassa, who will try to break with the disastrous statistics that haunt him when traveling home. Last season, in the Second Division, Espanyol de Moreno won nine games away from RCDE Stadium. In Primera, however, the story is very different.
After weeks of epidemic decline which hinted at the end of the tunnel, did we rejoice too quickly? The curve of positive cases for Covid-19 begins a small increase since the beginning of March. On Friday March 4, the incidence rate was 540 positive cases per 100,000 inhabitants. Two days later, it was 546. And the next day, March 7, 567 French people were positive per 100,000 inhabitants.
→ CONTEXT. Covid-19: the end of the mandatory mask in classes
Admittedly, these figures remain far from those of the end of January, when the incidence rate easily exceeded 3,000 positive cases each day. “It is a little early to talk regarding recoveryestimates Public Health France (SPF). But there is indeed a dynamic, the evolution of which is difficult to predict because it is closely linked to the maintenance of barrier gestures and the immunity of the population. » For epidemiologists, it is impossible to know today if this is a harbinger or if the cases will stabilize at a high plateau.
Carnival in Martinique and school holidays
In detail, a sharp increase in contamination is visible among 3-10 year olds and in Martinique and Guadeloupe. In Martinique, the incidence rate is exploding and was close to 2,500 cases per 100,000 inhabitants in the first week of March. Low vaccination coverage and the carnival festivities at the end of February explain this sharp increase according to the regional health agency.
→ REPORT. In Guadeloupe, a carnival to forget the Covid crisis
In mainland France, the increase in cases would rather be closer to the end of the school holidays. “The school is not the only one in question, but it is one of the engines of the recoverybelieves Michaël Rochoy, general practitioner and member of the Stop-Postillons collective. Both because children infect each other, and infect adults more, with more contact and mixing. Also because children are tested more when they go to school. »
The impact of the BA.2 variant
Philippe Amouyel, epidemiologist at the Lille University Hospital, nuance: “We also see the arrival of a high plateau in the contaminations among our European neighbors who do not necessarily have the same school calendar as France. » SPF confirms that the end of the epidemic decline was already observed in zone C, even though the holidays were still in progress.
→ EXPLANATION. Covid-19: should we worry regarding the BA.2 sub-variant?
“The end of the school holidays is therefore not the only factor to explain the observed incidence”, estimates the public agency. The BA.2 variant, more contagious than the first version of Omicron, would it be in question? Hard to say, but the last flash survey confirmed that the BA.2 shape was now the majority in France, replacing the original version.
Take off the mask to put it back on
Still, France will not reach the thresholds set by Olivier Véran in mid-February as conditions for lifting the mask. At the time, the reproduction factor of the virus had to be less than 1, the number of Covid-19 patients in critical care had to fall to less than 1,500, and the incidence rate not exceed 500. cases per 100,000 population. For the moment, only the first criterion remains in the nails. And once more, it went up from 0.6 to 0.8 in the first week of March.
More than 2,000 patients remained hospitalized in critical care as of March 8, a figure however in continuous decline. The progression of vaccination coverage makes it possible to limit serious forms, even if it is impossible to measure the possible tension to come on the intensive care units. Michaël Rochoy warns: “There is a lag of ten days between the curve of contaminations and that of hospitalizations, which is likely to follow at the end of March. »
For the GP, easing restrictions on Monday is an aberration. “This will promote contamination and in the end, more contamination means always more hospitalizations and deaths. At Public Health France, we half-acknowledge the problem. “Lifting the measures can have an impact on the dynamics of the epidemic, and it is therefore necessary to rely on individual accountability”, concede the specialists. And to remember: “In the context of still intense viral circulation, the start of the new school year and the reduction of collective health measures, it is essential to maintain barrier gestures. »
BarcelonaBarça lost to Zalgiris (91-84). The Barça team blamed the 22 balls lost and the 35 points received in the last quarter once morest a rival who did not play anything and went from strength to strength. “Our match has been horrible. I don’t like the momentum we have had since we won the Copa del Rey,” said Sarunas Jasikevicius. The Lithuanian coach was replaced by Cory Higgins and Pierre Oriola. Nikola Mirotic added 26 points and 8 rebounds, but lost 7 balls in one night in which the Catalan team lost concentration with the referees.
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Formica fusca ants in Germany @BelgaImage
Ants can learn to sniff out cancerous human cells, like dogs but much more quickly, according to a study which proposes to dig this track for the early detection of tumours.
Much easier to learn
Experiments have recently demonstrated the ability of the canine sense of smell to identify the olfactory imprint of certain cancerous tumours, which emit volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which a human cannot smell. But this method requires long training – between six months and a year per dog – and expensive – “tens of thousands of eurosBaptiste Piqueret, lead author of the study published this week in the journal iScience, told AFP.
This ethologist from the Sorbonne Paris Nord University therefore tried the experiment with ants, an insect using its powerful sense of smell in its daily tasks, and endowed with a capacity for rapid learning. With scientists from the CNRS, the Institut Curie and Inserm, he chose the most common species, Formica fusca, which is widespread in the northern hemisphere and which is not considered threatened in France. In the laboratory, the insects were subjected to so-called associative learning protocols where an odor is associated with a reward, in this case a drop of sugar water.
Three one-hour workouts are enough
In a first training session, the ant “wandered around freely, stumbled across a sweet drop and while she drank it, she sniffed her surroundings (with her antennae) imbued with a peculiar smell», Details the researcher. In the next step, the insect had the choice of going to a place with the learned smell and another with a different smell, but without a drop of sugar this time. “If the ant had learned well, it spent a lot of time near the smell associated with sugar and circled around it looking for the reward.».
These tests were carried out with smells of healthy human cells and cancerous cells (produced by ovarian cancer), to see if the ants might distinguish between them. Then, more finely, with two diseased cells (resulting from breast cancers), to see if the insects made the difference between two subtypes of cancers. “Three training sessions of less than an hour were enough for them to learnthe difference between these subtypes, welcomes the researcher. Moreover, the protocol isvery simple and does not require expensive equipment – as proof, I did the manipulations in my apartment during the spring 2020 confinement“, he confides.
remains to be assessed.the effectiveness of this method thanks to clinical tests on a complete human organism“, specifies the CNRS in a press release. Preliminary experiments are underway with urine from mice with cancer.